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[T. & R. Annan & Sons, Gla 

SIR HENRY JONES, C.H. 


Old dMemories 


Autobiography by 
SIR HENRY JONES, C.H. 

Late Professor of 3V[oralThilosophy 
In the University of Glasgow. 


Edited by 

THOMJS JONES, M.J., LL.D. 


New York 

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Made and Printed in Great Britain by William Lewis (Printers), Ltd., Cardiff. 


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Sir Henry Jones - 


PAGE 


- Frontispiece 


Mother of Sir Henry Jones 


Facing i6 


Elias Jones, Father of Sir Henry Jones „ i8 


The Home and Workshop at Llangernyw „ 21 


The Three Brothers (William, Henry 
AND John) ----- 

Henry Jones as a Student at Glasgow 




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102 


150 


161 


Lady Jones 








Dedication 


I'his book is dedicated to 
my beloved wife^ 
my strength and my peace 
during the last forty years. 




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Introduction 


OIR Henry Jones died on Saturday, 
^ February 4th, 1922, at his house in 
Tighnabruaich in the Kyles of Bute. Shortly 
before his death he handed to me—one of 
his old students—the manuscript of this 
book for publication. In addition to the 
chapters now published, which bring his 
reminiscences up to his appointment as 
Professor of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Glasgow, he had dictated in 
the last few weeks of his life some account of 
his work as teacher and citizen in Glasgow, 
of his lecturing tours in the United States 
and Australia, and of a visit to his eldest son 
in Burma. But he was too ill to revise this 
portion of the work, and it has been decided 
to use the material in the biography which 
is now in preparation. 

Sir Henry’s main object in writing these 
Old Memories was to leave behind, for the 
encouragement of the youth of Wales and 
Scotland in particular, the story of his 
struggle for education. It was written 






6 


Introduction 


during the last two years of his life as a 
relaxation from the more arduous task of 
preparing the Gifford Lectures, since 
published under the title A Faith that 
Enquires A Throughout this period he was 
suffering from cancer, and he well knew that 
it was surely defeating the doctors and that 
the end could not long be delayed. He 
fought against these odds with extraordinary 
courage, and no one who reads the pages 
which follow or the radiant exposition of 
his religious faith in the Gifford Lectures 
would ever surmise that their author was 
the victim of a malignant disease and rarely 
free from pain. 

The story of Sir Henry’s early days has 
not only its inspirational value ; it is also 
within its brief compass a vivid contribution 
to the recent social history of Wales. It 
contains a memorable picture of a working¬ 
man’s home in a remote upland village— 
the sort of home from which most that is 
best in Wales has sprung. That happy 
home-life revolved around the chapel and 
the school. In the adjustment of both 
to the expanding needs of his time Henry 
Jones played an important part. His teach¬ 
ing helped to make God more human and 
man more divine in the eyes of his countrymen. 

* Macmillan. 










Introduction 


7 


He symbolised for his people a victor in 
the struggle for knowledge. Higher education 
in the principality is an enterprise not of 
centuries but of the past few years. The 
oldest University College celebrated its first 
jubilee three or four months ago, and the 
University of Wales is not yet thirty years 
old. The Act of Parliament which made 
secondary education in Wales general and 
systematic only dates from 1889. The life 
of Henry Jones thus spans a change in the 
provision of educational facilities great enough 
to be called revolutionary and the leaders 
who wrought the change have only just passed 
from our midst. Their names are still 
familiar on Welsh lips, and their faces 
remembered. They held up the example 
of the illustrious shoemaker as a beacon 
light to the boys and girls of Wales. He 
in his turn lent the aid, not only of his shining 
example, but of his voice and pen to secure 
for others what had been denied to himself. 
During the eight and twenty years which he 
spent in Glasgow it is certain that few days 
passed in which he did not give some thought 
to the needs of his native land, and one of 
his very last projects was an attempt to 
associate the Churches of Wales more closely 
with the duty of providing continuous adult 
education in all branches of knowledge. 





8 


Introduction 


He served on various Commissions and 
committees concerned with Wales and was 
always consulted by the leaders at every 
critical juncture in her educational struggle. 

During the Great War, his unusual powers of 
popular appeal were placed at the service 
of the nation, and he gave scores of addresses 
at the request of the Government in all 
parts of this country and the United States. 
It was a time of continuous domestic anxiety 
for him as for myriads of others. His three 
surviving sons were on far-flung battle-lines, 
and the youngest of them fell in France. 

I have not tampered with the story which 
he wrote beyond correcting an obvious verbal 
slip here and there and omitting one or two 
names the inclusion of which might annoy 
living relatives. He wrote entirely from 
memory and without consulting documents. 
Minor inaccuracies ma^q therefore, have 
escaped his notice and mine. 

THOMAS JONES. 

7, Hampstead Hill Gardens, N.W. 3. 

November, 1922, 







Old Memories 


Chapter I 


I WAS born, they tell me, on the 30th day 
of November, 1852, in a little cottage 
called Cwm, near the small village of Llan- 
gernyw, in Denbighshire ; and, in order to 
make as sure as possible of my eternal safety, 
I was baptized in the village church by the 
rector of the parish on the same day. My 
father was the village shoe-maker ; not a 
cobbler, be it noted, whose grade is decisively 
lower ; for my father made new boots as well 
as mended old ones. My mother, before her 
marriage, had been servant maid in a succes¬ 
sion of farms. She was the prettiest brunette, 
I was told, in all the country round, and 
known everywhere for her cleverness and 
sprightliness. 

Better blood than mine could run in no 
child's veins. It was not blue ; but it was 
red with the healthy redness of simple lives 
led in the open air. And, so far as I ever 
heard, there was among my progenitors not 

9 





10 


Old Memories 


a single liar, or coward, or sneak, or lounger, 
or hard and unkind man. All my ancestors 
whose story I can trace were either farmers 
or farm labourers—except my father. They 
followed the plough and the harrow, wielded 
the scythe and the sickle on the meadows, 
and habitually welcomed '' the morn in russet 
mantle clad over the brow of the neigh¬ 
bouring eastern hill. 

My mother, her father and her father’s 
father, and, I believe, my grandmother and 
great-grandmother also were deeply religious. 
My great-grandfather and great-grandmother, 
I think, must have been amongst those earliest 
dissenters who, in Wales at that time, suffered 
a good deal of persecution. They lived for a 
time in the little chapel house at Cefn Coch ; 
and the old lady had charge of keeping the 
chapel clean, sweeping its floors and dusting 
its pews, once a week. 

They were “ members ” of their church, 
and not merely '‘hearers” or “adherents.” 
And to be a “ member ” of a dissenting church 
meant a good deal in those days. It meant 
much more than partaking of the sacra¬ 
ment when the communion was celebrated, and 
the little, cheap, ordinary, earthenware 





Old Memories 


II 


sacramental cup was passed around, from lip to 
lip. The '' members ” were a select few, who 
stayed behind for more intimate spiritual 
communion when the mass of the congrega¬ 
tion walked out at the end of the sermon. 
There was hardly one of them who could not 
point back to the very day of his conversion, 
or at least to a period when the sense of sin 
or the fear of hell,—yielding place sometimes 
after many weeks of torture to a consciousness 
of forgiveness, a great peace and a deep joy 
—overwhelmed the soul. That the con¬ 
version was sincere could hardly be doubted, 
for nothing was to be gained at that time by 
pretending to be a converted dissenter and 
much might be lost. Conversion thus meant 
that those who experienced it had really felt, 
in some fashion or another, the power of the 
things of the spirit, and had from that day 
on dedicated themselves to religion. Their 
homes were sacred with the daily prayers 
offered in them morning and evening, and 
sometimes at mid-day ; and their knowledge 
of the Bible was marvellous. They read 
nothing else, of course, and they read it very 
closely ; for was not every word in it '' the 
word of God" ? My grandfather, on my 




12 


Old Memories 


mother’s side, could turn at once to any 
verse you might want, and tell you before¬ 
hand on what page of his own big Bible it 
was to be found and whether at the top, 
middle, or bottom. 

I have a fairly distinct memory of this 
grandfather of mine. His name was William 
Williams and he died when I was about ten 
years old. I can yet see him stooping over 
and leaning hard on the two sticks by the 
help of which he walked. Above all I 
remember seeing him on his knees in “ the 
big pew ” of the little chapel, with his head 
thrown far back and his face turned upwards 
as he pleaded in passionate earnestness in 
prayer with his God. I remember him also 
in the Sunday School which he attended to 
the end of his life with faithfulness. He was 
over seventy years of age at the time, and so, 
I have no doubt, were most if not all of his 
fellow-scholars in the class. His teacher ” 
was a rich old shop-keeper of the name of 
Robert Roberts. “ I don’t know what to 
do with that old shop-keeper,” grumbled my 
grandfather one Sunday afternoon after the 
Sunday school. He has been gloating for 
three Sundays over the chapter that tells of 





Old Memories 


13 


the wealth of Job, wondering what the 
price of a camel and a yoke of oxen was in 
those days. I can’t get him away from it.” 
For the Sunday School in Wales is an institu¬ 
tion for adults as well as lor children ; and 
the sanest of all educational institutions in 
that respect, for it rests on the assumption 
that the care of the soul, like the care of the 
body, should be life-long—an assumption 
which not even a life spent amongst college 
dons has been able to disprove. My grand¬ 
father lived next door to my father and mother 
and made walking-sticks in the evenings, 
while my grandmother stitched and sewed 
patchwork quilts ; and he made presents of 
the walking-sticks to the most select of his 
friends. One item more completes his life 
so far as I remember it. He gave me a 
lesson in reading Welsh, and, one day, sitting 
on the side of the bed in my father’s workshop, 
he impressively put on his spectacles, exam¬ 
ined the stitches, one by one, which by way 
of learning to be a shoemaker I had put in a 
leather patch, and he criticised them, praising 
here and blaming there, as if he was dealing 
with a work of high art. He was “ a born 
teacher.” He was also, most probably, a 





14 


Old Memories 


natural orator, for he was the most beautiful 
public reader of the Bible in all the country 
round ; and most probably of quite a distinct 
literary genius. In any case his life was very 
beautiful; for he was kindly and very playful 
as well as devout; and he nursed and nur¬ 
tured his character on the finest book in the 
world, day by day, throughout the whole of 
a long, humble, industrious and very peaceful 
life. During the latter part of his life, and 
for a great many years he worked on the 
estate of the squire, Sandbach. When he 
became old his wages were repeatedly reduced. 
They were at last reduced to 4s. a week, 
which was starvation wages even in those 
days, and on this 4s. a week he was expected 
to live himself and keep his home going. 
But the ultimate reward of his long and 
faithful service was half-a-crown for a week’s 
work ; and -then, my mother told me, '' he 
broke his heart.” 

Of my grandfather on my father’s side I 
have much less to say. He was the tenant 
of a small farm, situated near the borders of 
three parishes,—Llanfair Talhaiarn, Llansan- 
nan and Llanefydd. The farm was itself 
bordered on the one side by a deep, dark, 






15 


Old Memories 

thickly-wooded gully, which was infested at 
nights with bogies. No one who could help 
it went through Nant-y-Chwil ’’ at, or after, 
midnight. His name was John Jones, and 
he was the son of a Harri Jones, a farmer whose 
descent I cannot trace, except to Adam and 
Eve. John Jones was a little man, very fond 
of horses (and horses of him !) ; and he had 
a tall wife and nine children, of whom my 
father, Elias, was the eldest. John Jones 
died when he was about sixty years old. He 
was ploughing in his shirt-sleeves in a shower 
of rain, got thoroughly wet, and after that 
put on his jacket. He caught a chill and died 
of it. His wife, my grandmother, lived after 
him for many years. She visited us occasion¬ 
ally, and I can always see her knitting and 
hear her speaking a little in jerky mono¬ 
syllables. My father never spoke much to 
me about his parents ; but he told me one 
thing, when he was an old man, and told it 
with a simple pathos that made his story 
grip. It was about his mother. Whenever she 
sent him to stay for a week or two at his grand¬ 
father’s farm, she gave him a thoroughly 
sound thrashing, asking him between the 
blows Will you remember now to be a good 





i6 


Old Memories 


tk 


boy ? '' These hefor e-hand beatings he could 
not think quite fair. 

The strain, the disposition, the tempera¬ 
ment, the character, the whole outlook on 
life and the way of living it, of the sides of 
my parentage were distinctly different. On 
the one side the whole make and bent of the 
soul, its natural tendencies and its history, 
were of the religious type. There was intui¬ 
tion, passion, yearning after perfection, 
imagination of what the best might be, and 
the pursuit of it ; and the soul was so 
dedicated to the things '' beyond,’’ that this 
life, with its opportunities and chances and 
even ethical obligations, was in the back¬ 
ground. On my father’s side, on the other 
hand, we had the thoroughly secular but also 
thoroughly moral spirit. Honesty, simplicity, 
industry, truthfulness, fidelity, and above all 
an abounding neighbourliness and kindliness, 
were the ruling powers. A slack ” job 
never passed through my father’s hands, or 
through those of any of his eight brothers 
and sisters. I adore his memory ; and I will 
not promise what I cannot perform, namely, 
to speak of him in measured terms. My 
mother was religious. Her mind had an 







Photo by] 


[John Wickens. 


MOTHER OF SIR HENRY JONES. 





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Old Memories 


17 

imaginative reach which my father’s had not; 
and if ever man or woman was endowed with 
that kind of intuitive power which, psycholo¬ 
gists say, reaches true conclusions without 
the help of any premises, it was my mother. 
She also like her father knew her Bible well, 
and how to use its verses—sometimes for 
dreadful castigation and reproof ; she read 
any and every novel (in Welsh) that came 
within her reach ; and she attended every 
sermon and marked every poetic turn it 
might take. My mother was imaginative 
and aesthetic and intuitive to the finger-tips ; 
and she was extraordinarily clever. 

My parents, between them, gave to me 
and to my two older brothers and my single 
sister, a first-rate up-bringing. I should not 
be exaggerating much if I said that my 
mother, when I was a boy between six or* 
seven and thirteen, thumped me out of the 
house and into the open air, with a piece of 
bread-and-butter in my hand, every day of 
my life—taking care, however, never really 
to hurt. We were all habitually turned out 
of the house to play in the open air when it 
was not raining ” ; and if it was raining we 
had our games in the bake-house, which was 







i8 


Old Memories 


under the same roof as our own and our 
grandmother's cottage, and which being door¬ 
less was by no means air-less. In the day¬ 
time, of course, we were in school, except at 
meals ; and in the evenings we were in the 
little chapel close by, where there was some 
service or another every night of the week— 
except Saturdays. 

Decisively, there was no room for us all 
in my father's house, or at least no room for 
us to move about, or do anything. It con¬ 
sisted of one room downstairs measuring 
about ten feet each way, and a room of the 
same size and shape upstairs. The ceiling 
was about six feet high with its white-washed 
rafters. The window of the room upstairs 
was kept open—a rare thing for cottagers 
at that time but one of my mother's sane 
fads. The window of the room in which we 
lived, where all the cooking was done and the 
meals eaten and the visitors entertained— 
kitchen, dining-room, drawing-room, living 
room all in one—was never opened. It was 
half blocked with geraniums, and there hung 
in front of it a bird's cage with a much-made- 
of goldfinch hopping about and singing inside. 
So far as sleeping-room was concerned we 








Dwto by] 

ELIAS JONES, FATHER OF SIR 


[John Wickens. 

HENRY JONES. 


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Old Memories 


^9 

fared not so badly ; for my eldest brother 
William and I slept—slept and quarrelled— 
in one of our grandmother’s beds next door. 

This house was my real '' home,” the only 
“ home ” I had till I found one of my own. 
But I was not born in it. I was born in a 
low, long, thatched, small-windowed, very 
old-fashioned house at the foot of a little hill 
close by. My parents moved from it when I 
was six months old, and every vestige of it 
has disappeared long ago. I wish I could 
describe its spacious hearth, with room for 
fire-place and oven, and chimney-bench 
{maingc y simnai), seated on which neighbours 
were entertained, and songs were sung and 
tales of ghosts were told. If you looked up 
through the great open chimney you would 
see a wide expanse of sky overhead. If you 
looked into the room—the kitchen—you 
would find it rich with flitches of bacon, and 
very ill-lit by the petty window in front and 
still smaller one at the back. At the other 
end was the ground-floor bed-room, and on 
the other side of the bed-room wall was the 
barn. Attached to the barn again was a 
small cow-house, with its gable against a 
slight slope, on the top of which, looking 




20 


Old Memories 


down at the cow-house, was my fathers 
workshop,—a lean-to,’' attached to my 
real home.” 

I have a distinct memory of this old 
thatched house, and of some of its tenants. 
Even yet I can hear the thump, thump, 
thump of the flail, and the fourth gentler 
thump, as it was swung three times to the 
left and once to the right, all day long, to 
thresh the corn grown on the little farm. 
The threshing, now done in a few hours by 
a visiting ”fire-engine,” then occupied the 
farm labourer all the wet days of the winter 
and occupied him very peacefully. I also 
remember the excitement of seeing a new 
calf in the byre, and its being fed ; so that it 
was there that, one way or another, I got my 
first experience of a wider world. 

Returning now to my proper home, I 
cannot but marvel at the skill that secured 
its comfort for all of us. A happier household, 
I believe, there never was ; and though my 
father, I should say, never made a pound a 
week, we never lacked anything, so far as I 
could see, whether in the way of wholesome 
food or of comfortable and respectable cloth¬ 
ing. Of course it is not possible to make the 









Tlll{ nOMl-: AND W'OlxMvSHOi’ AT LLANGItKNYW. 







Old Memories 21 

“ plenty '' of a good working man's home 
intelligible to the well-to-do. Things which 
look like impossibilities are achieved every 
day; and the so-called Laws of Domestic 
Economy are abstract generalities compared 
with the concrete sense and skill of the clever 
mother. Let me illustrate. Seven persons 
had all their meals every day in that little 
ten-foot kitchen, where the food was cooked 
and the family lived. There was no room 
for us all to sit at our table; neither the 
table nor the room was big enough. What 
then ? The answer is simple ; we took our 
meals in relays. First came my two elder 
brothers, both of them apprentice gardeners 
at the squire's (on terms, I may say in 
passing, which though possibly common 
enough in those days, now seem to me to 
have been villainously hard : for the appren¬ 
ticeship to common gardening lasted for 
seven years ; and the wage began at 4s. a 
week, was increased by is. each year, and 
culminated in los. a week). My brothers 
generally arrived home at mid-day ravenously 
hungry: for they had had a most hasty 
breakfast, owing to unfailingly '' sleeping in," 
and they had dug and delved all the morning 







vrmim 

22 


mtitm 


Old Memories 


in the open air. Their food was, perhaps by 
some trifle, a little better, or better served, 
than what followed. After them came my 
father, bringing his princely good-nature and 
unselfishness and splendid appetite; and 
with him came one (or sometimes two) of 
his workmen. What meal I had I generally 
took standing, being always in a hurry to 
go out to play. When my younger sister fed I 
cannot remember ; but everything that con¬ 
cerned her was “ special.'’ My mother sat 
at peace to her dinner later on, after she 
had attended to all our needs, and she ate 
it at leisure. On Sundays, when we had 
fresh meat, we all dined at the same time, 
one, or perhaps two of us, sitting on the 
doorstep if the weather was fine, with the 
plate on our knees. But neither on Sunday 
nor on week-day was the meal scanty, or 
the fun and chatter lean, or was there any 
faintest hint of scarcity or poverty. 

Let me give another example. There was 
no room for the cradle in the day-time on 
that crowded ten-foot floor, when my second, 
little, short-lived sister was born. \^at was 
to be done ? Well! the cradle was put 
upstairs, a string was let down from it through 





Old Memories 


23 


a hole in the low ceiling, and whenever the 
baby cried my mother bade one of us pull 
the string. I can hear the rick-rock of the 
cradle above my head even yet, when I sit 
down to listen to old memories. 

As to the clothing matters were just as 
easy. I don’t think mother ever had or 
needed anything new; but she adorned 
everything she wore when she was dressed.” 
My father never had new Sunday clothing 
so far as I ever heard ; but the tailor had to 
come, say about once a year, and, sitting 
with his apprentice on our kitchen table, 
make him a new pair of strong, ribbed, every¬ 
day breeches. What other new clothes were 
made went, naturally, to my elder brothers. 
The clothes that became too small for them 
were made down to me. I think I was more 
than sixteen years old when I had my first 
new jacket; and I know that when I sat for 
the Queen’s Scholarship, in Bangor, at 
eighteen years of age, I had the loan of the 
suit of clothes of one brother in order that I 
might look respectable, and the loan of the 
watch of the other brother in order that I 
might “ time ” the answers to the questions. 
No indignity was meant ; none was ever 




24 


Old Memories 


thought of. We were all partners in one 
family enterprise, and all things ran smoothly 
in their course. 

Our food was somewhat monotonous, and 
possibly we might have done better with less 
buttermilk and more sweet-milk. But, 
while the latter was plentiful and cheap and 
good, the former was to be had in big can-fulls 
for the mere fetching. It was the customary 
return made by our neighbours for some 
kindly deed or another of my father’s or 
mother’s. On the whole the victualling was 
as wholesome as it was plentiful. It con¬ 
sisted of bread-and-milk or of '' shot,” that 

is, ground oat-cake and milk, or of bread 
and soup—the soup made out of dripping 
bought at the squire’s hall, being, I under¬ 
stand, the cook’s perquisite. And the bread 
was of my mother’s own making—^the best 
in all the land ! Even yet I think that no 
bread can rival the big loaves turned out of 
the domestic ovens of Wales and Brittany. 

Such was our home, and our daily life in 

it. It was crowded and restless, with some¬ 
thing going on at every moment. Either 
my mother was cooking, or my father was 
heating his polishing irons in the kitchen fire. 






Old Memories 


25 


or some of us children were clamouring for 
bread-and-butter, or a neighbour had stepped 
in to find if his boots were ready or to enjoy 
a chat. But we helped, and I think I may 
say, we inspired each other ; and we were 
very happy. 

A better-fitted pair than my father and 
mother there could hardly be. She ruled 
always in little things, and my father’s 
attitude towards her was obviously idolatrous, 
and charming to witness. Hers to him was 
mischievous to the last degree, and his 
patience occasionally gave way for brief 
moments. Then he would grumble, and 
endure and join in the fun. Be about 
to-night, Harry ! when your father is going 
to bed,” she said to me one day. I took care 
to do as I was told, for I knew something 
was up. My father proceeded to take off 
his day-shirt : instead of coming over his 
head, it pulled up his trousers. He tried to 
pull off his trousers ; but found that he was 
only tightening his shirt at the shoulders. 
Mother sat by, watching and laughing, and 
he knew then that some trick or another had 
been played on him. He lost his temper 
just for the moment, as often happened, 





26 


Old Memories 


seized the shirt firmly by the two shoulders 
and tore out its hold on the trousers. It was 
then her turn to cry, “ Don’t, Elias ! ” The 
brace-button had come off during the day, 
mother had been asked to sew it on again, 
and she seized the opportunity of making him 
incapable, as she thought, of undressing 
himself. 

I am tempted to tell another little story. 
It illustrates so well the atmosphere of our 
happy home. I was home on a visit, and, I 
believe, a professor at St. Andrews at the 
time. I was sitting in the kitchen, the only 
living-room, chatting with my mother, when 
my father came in. He had been out, taking 
his usual evening walk after his day’s work, 
along the quiet country road, and in the dark. 
" I think,” he said to my mother as he was 
sitting down, ” I think I have caught two 
lovers.” '' No ! ” cried my mother as full 
of excited interest as if she were a young 
woman, '' who were they, Elias ? ” “I’ll 
not tell you,” he replied, “for you will not 
believe me.” She begged, and of course, 
he gave in, bidding me observe that my 
mother would refuse to believe him. “ It was 
Robert Davies, the tailor,” he said, “ and 




Old Memories 





Mrs. Roberts, the widow who lives at the 
chapel house.” 

Robert Davies was a serious-minded 
elder, about sixty-hve years old and a 
widower. ” Don’t talk nonsense 1 ” cried my 
mother, rejecting his tale just as he had 
foretold. ” Well,” said he at length, when 
she persisted in her unbelief, ” Til tell you 
what I saw, and you can judge for yourself. 
As I was passing the door of Mrs. Roberts’s 
house, it was opened and a flood of light 
poured out. Robert Davies walked in, and 
I saw him quite plainly. He had a ham 
under his arm. 1 lingered about, and in 
about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes 
Robert Davies came out, without the ham.'" 
“Well! well!” cried my mother, her sceptic¬ 
ism completely overcome by the evidence 
of the “ ham,'' which was evidently, for her 
as for my father, conclusive proof of marital 
intentions, if not also of the tender passion. 
I thought the whole scene between my father 
and my mother one of the most humorous 
I had ever witnessed, and felt I had discovered 
a new use for hams 1 

Although the contagion of its humour was 
irresistible on one or two occasions I thought 










28 Old Memories 

my mother's fondness for making fun of my 
father carried her too far, despite his charming 
way, after a helpless little period of anger and 
grumbling, of taking the joke. It was his 
habit for many a year to go about once every 
twelve months to his sister’s farm, and have 
a week of ferreting, of which he was very 
fond. On one of these occasions, having 
failed to finish his new flannel shirt, she sent 
him away in it only tacked together. He had 
a week of trouble over that shirt, for the 
tacking gave way, and he came home in 
what was for him very ill-humour. Look 
here ! ” he said to my mother, as he took a 
wrist-band out of one pocket and the collar 
of his shirt out of another ! while he showed 
how a very rough device of his own kept back 
and front connected, and held the sleeves 
at the shoulder. It was really too bad ! 
But it was also overwhelmingly comical, and 
my mother sank into a chair, with her two 
hands in her lap, quite overcome with laughter. 

What with the mixture of happiness, fun, 
good health and hard work we did, on the 
whole, uncommonly well in that humble little 
house. My eldest brother, William, came 
out second in the United Kingdom in an 





Old Memories 


29 


examination held by The Society of Arts and 
Sciences in the subjects of “ Fruit and Vegeta¬ 
ble Culture'' and '' Floriculture/' My next 
brother, John, came out easily first in the 
Kingdom, in a similar examination held 
some years later by the same society. And 
at the earliest allowable age, and while still 
a working shoe-maker, I passed, out of the 
same noisy and restless little kitchen, into 
the Normal College for Schoolmasters at 
Bangor, at the head of the college list, and 
first in the Kingdom of all the non-pupil- 
teacher candidates. 

I pass over the Eisteddfodic prizes we won 
from time to time : for essays, recitation, 
singing, reading and so forth. They were 
insignificant except for the joy they gave my 
father, who could not help telling, every now 
and then, how out of one competitive meeting 
thirteen prizes were won by his boys. It 
was a good home. For me, at any rate, none 
could have been better. Learning," of 
which my father had none, for he had left 
school when he was seven years old, was held 
in high esteem. (I remember when I was a 
big boy, waiting for hours for a B.A. to pass 
along the road, and then failing, from very 




30 


Old Memories 


reverence, to speak to him.) The respect for 
learning was due to my father. He would 
allow nothing to break the regularity of our 
attendance at the village school. And long 
before he left the school to become a gardener's 
apprentice, my eldest brother, “ William Jones 
—One " as he was called by the schoolmaster 
to distinguish him from William Jones Two, 
was by far the best scholar. There was an 
interesting and emphatic proof of this fact. 
William happened to be ill with measles, or 
scarlet fever (I cannot remember which) when 
the Diocesan Inspector came to examine 
the school. The absence of the finest scholar 
was keenly felt by the teacher, and by Mr. 
Sandbach, the squire, and, possibly, also by 
the inspector. So William was sent for. My 
mother wrapped him in a blanket, my father 
carried him to the school, the teacher placed 
him in his class amongst the other children, 
and William carried off all the prizes. 
Sanitary regulations were below the horizon 
at that time. 

I am sorry to say that I cannot speak well of 
the village school, or, at least, of the village 
schoolmaster. He was very cruel and very 
ignorant. The cane was in his hand from the 





Old Memories 


31 


opening of the school in the morning to its 
close at four o’clock in the afternoon : faults, 
errors, slips, a constant succession of petty 
nothingnesses led to its use, either on the 
hand or on the back or on both hands and 
back. Some child whispers ; he cannot find 
out which. He thrashes the class all round. 
The answer to the sum is wrong, the boot is 
not exactly at the chalk line, a child has 
turned his head round, there are more than 
a certain number of errors, say three, in the 
dictation, a lad has spoken in Welsh—any of 
these might be a reason for a whacking ; and 
there was lamentation in the school all day 
long. The master had one merit. He was 
thoroughly energetic. But it would have been 
better, I believe, had he been lazy and careless, 
and left the children a lighter burden of care 
and fear. 

But probably what the boys disliked most 
in him were his obvious favouritisms. These 
were shown invariably to the well-dressed 
children of the well-to-do, who attended, not 
the Methodist or Baptist chapel, but the 
village church. They were hardly ever 
caned, even lightly. But the chapel-going 
children, and especially those who were poor 







32 


Old Memories 


or slowj suffered many a blow, and were 
stung by many a vulgar sarcasm levelled at 
their “ religion/' 

The picture is not agreeable and I hasten 
on. Personally, I may say, I suffered com¬ 
paratively little at the schoolmaster's hands. 
I was something of a favourite ; and a most 
emphatic distinction was made between me 
and my brother John who was always being 
caned, and always unrepentant, and always 
first favourite on the playground. But I 
must not forget the master's attitude towards 
the Welsh language, the only habitual 
language of the village and country. .The 
speaking of it was strictly forbidden, both in 
the school and in the playground. The 
master every morning handed over to a 
child in each of the higher classes a small 
block of wood, through which a string passed. 
That child was to watch and listen till he 
heard someone speak Welsh : and one Welsh 
word was enough. Then the “ Welsh stick " 
was passed on, and every child who held it 
had either a stroke of the cane, or two verses 
of the Bible to learn, as a penalty. 

I think John must have been very able. 
He was not so prominent as a scholar as my 




Old Memories 33 

eldest brother William was—^who was easily 
the best of his time ; and I shared John’s 
lessons although he was two and a half years 
older than I was. But he never gave himself 
to his lessons as I did : and he had far more 
ideas and interests of his own. I was 
naturally his slave; the younger brother 
always is in '‘a well-regulated family,” by 
which I mean a family which is regulated as 
little as possible and in which the parents 
interfere only on grave occasions. But I 
was by no means the only boy who found his 
guide, philosopher and friend in John, who 
had a genius for leadership in all practical 
enterprises,” such as we considered games. 

There was evidence of his ability to lead. 
Every summer for some years, sometime 
in June, I believe, when the turnips in the 
fields of the farmers were sufficiently grown 
out of the ground, the village school broke 
up. And a gang, consisting mainly though 
not merely of boys, went from farm to farm 
to thin the turnips, receiving first 8d., then 
lod., then a shilling a day’s wages—fourpence 
a day being taken off if we had our meals on 
the farm. The whole of our school holidays, 
extending for four or five weeks, were spent 

3 







34 Old Memories 

at this work. I had a few days of it when I 
was only five-and-a-half years old, my mother 
—it must have been with too little reflection 
—letting me go with my bigger brothers. 
I remember yet the expanse of the time 
between meals, the length of the day, and my 
being carried home from Cammaes, too tired 
to walk, by the bigger boys. From the time 
I was six-and-a-half years old, till I began 
shoe-making, I thinned turnips for the farmers 
every year. John was our gang-man. He 
assigned to every boy and girl a place in the 
gang, and made all the arrangements with 
the farmers ; and no autocrat could exercise 
more unquestioned authority. By this work 
he and I each made some 25s. to 27s. every 
summer, sums that were as a matter of course 
handed over to our mother, and valued by 
her as substantial helps to her house-keeping. 

What my age was when I first attended 
school I cannot say : probably, about four- 
and-a-half; for I remember well sitting on 
the knees of the bigger girls, and being 
'' mothered by them. But the incidents 
which have clung to my mind are very few. 
I cannot forget the cold feet in the winter, 
or how we longed, in vain, to get near the 





Old Memories 


35 

fire. Nor can I forget my introduction of a 
live and wild squirrel into the school, and 
the commotion and utter confusion it caused 
as it ran to and fro along the floor, climbed 
up the children and jumped from one to 
another, seeking to escape. Moreover, I was 
singled out to recite, when the school was 
celebrating the marriage of the Prince of 
Wales (afterwards King Edward the Seventh). 
Nor can I forget the incident which I am 
tempted to call the proudest of my life.” 
Toe-caps had come into fashion. A pair 
of boots with toe-caps was ordered of my 
father. The stitching of the toe-cap had 
to be specially accurate and fine ; and my 
father, when I was a boy of about twelve, 
came to school to fetch me to do that sewing. 
There was not in the whole of Great Britain 
a prouder spirit than mine as I walked at 
my father’s side across the play-ground to do 
this bit of work. 

I left school when I was twelve-and-a-half 
years old, and put on my little shoe-maker’s 
leather apron : and a new and most happy 
page of my life was opened. There are few, 
if any, pleasanter scenes in the world than 
those presented by the little workshops of 






36 Old Memories 

the country shoe-makers and tailors. There, 
master and man sit working side by side, 
talking freely with one another about any¬ 
thing and everything; for they sit quite 
near each other, and the strain of the work 
is not so heavy or constant as to prevent 
either conversation or singing. Not that the 
talk was uninterrupted, or that the songs 
were ever sung right through. On the con¬ 
trary, I never heard my father or anyone of 
his workmen sing anything but snatches. 

“ Hurrah for France and England ! Victoria and 
Napoleon 

Have beaten Alexander : Sebastopol no more,” 
would suddenly break out during an interval 
of uncritical work, such as hammering the 
sole leather on the lap-stone. Then it would 
break off, and one rarely, if ever, heard any 
more. This was one of my father’s musical 
outbreaks. Or, perhaps, George, the best 
(and most drunken) of all my father’s work¬ 
men, would strike in, when opportunity 
offered, with 

“ Nelly Bly shuts her eye, when she goes to sleep.” 
or with 

“ The fox and the hare and the badger and the bear, 
And the birds on the greenwood tree. 

And the pretty little rabbits, so engaging in their 
They all have their mates, but me.” [habits. 







Old Memories 


37 


Then there were discussions and debates, 
and the village news had to go round, and 
my father was always crammed full of 
mischievous fun and anecdotes. 

The discussions and the debates were rarely 
political, and they were never religious ; but 
some of them would interest and occupy the 
mind of the workshop, off and on, for days. 
Above all, there was story-telling and tales 
of the experiences of other days ; and the 
chief of the story-tellers was my father. 
Many a time I have heard a neighbour, as 
he sat on the side of the bed near the head 
of my father’s bench of tools, beg him to 
repeat some well-known tale. That it had 
been told the hearer many times before was 
no reason against telling it again. It was 
the exact opposite ; so thoroughly did my 
father enjoy the telling, and so contagious 
was his enjoyment. 

Knowing the joys of the workshop as I 
did, I think it no wonder that I insisted on 
being allowed to be a shoe-maker, and 
stubbornly refused to be either a blacksmith 
(my mother’s choice for me), or a joiner, or a 
grocer’s boy, or a gardener, or any other of 
the crafts urged upon me, as better than 





Old Memories 


shoe-making '' as a means of a livelihood. 
I knew, knew in that decisive wav which we 
call “ feeling,” that if I made shoes, I could 
hear and share in what was going on in the 
workshop ; and I could sit side by side with 
my father whose favourite I was, and whom 
I adored. 

I had two mastering ambitions at that 
time, both of them at once strong and 
steady : one was to become a first-rate shoe¬ 
maker, and the other was to be made an 
elder in the little Calvinistic Methodist 
chapel, when I was a man. 

Perhaps I ought to try to describe the 
little workshop where I sat, day by day, 
for the next five or six years. It was 
a lean-to at the gable-end of my father’s 
cottage ; and its single window looked south 
—not east like the windows of the house. 
For a view there was the byre, and the old 
thatched cottage of which I have already 
spoken. The window was large, for the size 
of the room, and it was low, in order that 
the light might fall on the boots we had 
making or mending on our knees. My 
father’s seat, with its tools on his right and a 
little drawer beneath, and also the workman’s 







Old Memories 


39 


seat faced this window; and they were 
placed at such a distance from each 
other as would permit my father and the 
workman to stretch their arms in sewing 
without fear of collision. Behind the work¬ 
man’s seat and near the door was my own, 
and on the right of mine was that of James 
Pugh. He was the postman ; but he worked 
at ladies’ boots during the interval between 
his arrival from Llanrwst with the letter bags 
and his departure back again. Pugh was 
a most neat workman, minutely careful, but 
very slow. At the further end of the room, 
and opposite the door, was the workman’s bed. 
It was most untidy. There were leather skins 
at the foot of it, and old boots and lasts 
underneath it : it was the seat, the only seat, 
for the visitors and it was never '' made.” 

There was not much chance of privacy in 
that little workshop. Practically every 
thought was shared, sooner or later. 

I have no doubt that the air was bad, the 
place was so small and we were so crowded; 
but we never felt it except perhaps in the 
evenings, after dark, when my father, the work¬ 
man and myself sat round the same penny 
candle-dip, and our working-men neighbours 










40 Old Memories 

had leisure to visit us. The air was then 
felt to be somewhat close. 

We worked, as a rule, from 8 a.m. to 
8 p.m. ; but we were apt to work later on 
Saturdays, for there was always something 
that had to be '' finished.'’ But we had an 
interval for the simple dinner and a very 
short walk at mid-day ; and we had Tea. 
The Tea " was a superb meal. Mother's 
hand had prepared it and made the toast ; 
and her hand had the magic touch of the 
born cook's,—like that of the wife of Uncle 
Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin. And “ Tea" 
had an excellence of its own. It stopped the 
yawning and lifted off the listlessness of the 
afternoons ; so that, after tea, we gripped 
our work with new energy and new joy. 
Neither did we loosen that grip till the time 
came when we spread our leather aprons 
over our tools at the close of the day, and took 
a good warm-water wash in the open air— 
for only warm water would take the wax off 
our hands and only outside was there room 
to rub our hands and faces. Then we went 
forth into the evening quiet, each his own 
way, with his own companion and after his 
own private interest, and we breathed and 






Old Memories 


41 

enjoyed the fresh air as we went for our long 
walks along the country roads. 

Am I wrong in believing that all this time, 
amidst such scenes, and sharing in the fun, 
the discussions and the experience, merry 
and sad, of such companions, I was receiving 
a first-rate education ? Not, when I recall 
the depth of its influence upon my after-life, 
and especially upon my judgment of men 
and their ways. Not, above all, when I 
leave plenty of room for my father in the 
picture. 

When I think of him in his relations to 
me what comes first is his gentleness, and 
close upon his gentleness came his patience. 
The boots I made as a learner were, as a 
matter of course, handed round the workshop 
at different stages, and turned over and over, 
and I was praised or blamed or both, just 
as if we were dealing with works of art. 
And so we were : for the spirit of art was 
awake and active in the little country work¬ 
shops, in those days. 

My father reproved me once while I worked 
at his side.—It was for joining with the 
company in making fun of him! My repent¬ 
ance was overwhelming, and it is not over 







42 Old Memories 

even yet. Day after day, with infinite 
patience, he listened to my chatter and to 
my incessant questioning as to whether I 
could pass into college or not. For that 
adventure, as I shall tell, had appeared above 
my horizon. His mischief and fondness for 
fun were inexhaustible ; and the boys who 
took their mid-day dinner of warmed bread- 
and-milk in our house, as they attended 
school, crowded into the workshop to chat 
with him. And he told them the most 
outrageous nonsense—and, above all, 
addressed them always as grown-up men. 

But was there anyone in distress in the 
neighbourhood ? My father was at his side 
as a matter of course—so much a matter of 
course that the neighbours as a rule no more 
thought of thanking him than of thanking 
the sun for shining. A stranger farmer’s boy 
is squeezed between the shafts of the waggon 
and the wall. It is my father who watches 
him dying in the loft above the stable : the 
farmer is sleeping in his own bed. The news 
must be gently broken to the boy’s mother. 
My father walks, some thirteen or fourteen 
miles each way, to Rhyl to tell her. A 
drunken and surly and little-liked Scottish 







43 


Old Memories 

shepherd dies in his remote cottage. Mother, 
just to let me see, argues against my father’s 
going to the funeral. When he insisted that 
there might be no one there to lift the corpse, 
she replied, “ Well ! that is not your affair. 
He has left you sufficiently in the lurch 
already, for his debts will never be paid.” 
My father yields for the moment. But the 
scene is soon repeated ; and matters end by 
my father tossing his leather apron to one 
side, washing his face, putting on his Sunday 
clothes, taking his workman with him, and 
attending the funeral. He returns home 
very happy : the most beautiful sample of 
a gentle humanity in all the land. 

But the crowning example of the beauty of 
his character came to my knowledge in quite 
an incidental way. Our next-door neighbour, 
a wealthy and most stingy shop-keeper, was 
dying of consumption. Day after day he 
sent for my father to sit with him in the 
parlour and amuse him. It was often difficult 
for him to go, for some one or another was 
clamouring for his boots ; but he never once 
refused. On his arrival, the invalid would 
call out of the parlour to the housekeeper, 
'' Ellen Owens! bring a chair out of the 





44 


Old Memories 


kitchen for Elias Jones to sit on” So a 
wooden chair was brought in, placed amongst 
the vulgar horse-hair chairs beside the maho¬ 
gany table, and father sat in it never pretend¬ 
ing that he had seen and felt the insult. 
The sick old miser was not worthy to tie my 
father’s shoe-strings, and I have not repented 
of the inscription I placed on my father’s 
grave-stone, applying to him what was said 
of the wisdom that is from above ” : 
'' First pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy 
to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
fruits ” ; for such, in truth, my father always 
was. He was not in the least intellectual; 
he read slowly and with some difficulty and 
stumbled at the long words, and he read 
very little ; he was not a social leader in any 
direction, nor sought to be ; he was unassum¬ 
ing and unselfish to the last degree. His 
neighbours hardly knew the depth of their 
love and respect for him, till he was taken 
away ; but the aroma of his character still 
lingers in that little village where he spent 
his life. 




Old Memories 


Chapter II 


T BELIEVE I can claim that I learned 
my trade and became a sound and neat, 
though, so far, a slow workman. My reason 
for this belief is that when I was about i6 
years of age the best kind of work, that which 
demanded the most skilful handling, was 
committed to me in my turn, just as to my 
fellow-workers. But I made no further pro¬ 
gress, for a new ambition which changed 
the whole course of my life had suddenly 
flared across my path. The workshop and 
all its interests fell into the background. 
It hardly counted at all any more, although 
up to that time its power over me had been 
paramount and its influence, so far as I can 
judge, to the last degree wholesome and 
educative. But, while the little workshop 
and my working companions exercised more 
influence and did more to form my mind and 
character than anything else, there were 
other forces in operation. After all, the 

45 






46 Old Memories 

workshop was only an item in the wider 
and more varied life of the community, in 
which, perforce, I shared. For '' social 
influences ” were at their silent and restless 
play. And social influences, in my opinion, 
are powers whose extent has never been 
adequately realized. They are so constant, 
and they are so universal, and they are so 
intangible. As a rule we are not even 
conscious of their operation, any more than 
we are of the weight of the atmosphere. 
Their very existence is overlooked, and, for 
the majority of men and women, remains 
unsuspected. 

These influences not only played around 
and upon the mind and character of the 
members of that little remote community, 
but, as always, they entered into them and 
became elements in their very structure. 
From their silent working came the unique¬ 
ness of the villagers of Llangernyw, making 
them distinguishable from the inhabitants 
of the neighbouring villages of Llanfair and 
Gwytherin. For having entered into the 
mind and character and become elements 
of the personality of the villagers they 
shared in and coloured all their activities. 









Old Memories 


.47 

In short what the food and the air and the 
soil and the changing seasons meant for the 
body, the traditions and customs of the 
neighbourhood meant for those who were 
born and brought up in it. The individual 
could no more escape from their power 
than he could escape the laws of nature, 
and the results they produced had something 
like the necessity of natural law. 

Perhaps I had better try to illustrate 
this matter. 

For many years I have professed to be 
a moral philosopher. As a moral philosopher 
I am bound, as other men are not, to analyse 
character, and, so far as I can, show it in 
the making. Above all I am committed 
to the thinking that is reflective in character, 
to what Carlyle would call unwholesome 
self-scrutiny ” ; and I am bound to put 
opinions and beliefs unconsciously and un¬ 
critically adopted, to rigorous tests. Does 
the reader believe that, in doing so, I am 
able to free myself of the elements introduced 
into my very being when I was a growing 
boy and youth in that quiet little village ? 
I myself am under no such delusion. I can 
hardly help taking my stand at the side of 







48 


Old Memories 


the workingman, or, if I think him wrong, 
being generous in my excuses for him. The 
memory of my father comes up when I try 
to measure the value of the services and the 
pay of the workers. But my sympathy 
for the employer and capitalist is always 
slow to flow ; and I find myself wondering 
what their wages would be were they paid 
according to the value of their social services. 
Day by day I find new evidence that to be 
fair all round is beyond my power. 

But there is another side to the picture. 
The social influences of my boyhood help 
me to avoid being the slave of my present 
circumstances. I can look at men and things 
from more than one point of view : for the 
constitutive elements of personality persist 
and renew themselves under every change. 
And I often feel, as I move amongst my 
students and my colleagues, that the little 
village shoemaker and Calvinistic Methodist 
chapel-goer has still his part in what I say 
and do. 

Now amongst these social influences the 
most subtle and also the most universal were 
those of what goes by the name of religion.'' 
A very great deal depended on whether you 





Old Memories 


49 


attended the church, or one of the two 
chapels. Not that there was much sectarian 
antagonism in those days. I never witnessed 
any bitterness of that kind except in the 
actions and sayings of the parson, of the 
squire's wife, and the schoolmaster. The 
parson could hardly be blamed. Dissent 
to him was simply “ sin," as bad as lying 
any day and far less gentlemanly and pardon¬ 
able than an occasional drunken spree. 
Amongst the chapel-goers I can recall no 
evidence of antipathy to the church. When 
Owen Evans, the comical old joiner, said 
that if he saw the devil eating the parson 
on the high road he would not say ‘ Shoo ' 
to him, it was not a sectarian but a personal 
quarrel. One of our elders, Robert Davies, 
went from the chapel service every Sunday 
morning straight to the church service: 
I did the same myself, and while a member 
of the Calvinistic Methodist chapel sang 
in the church choir. Still more significant of 
the good-will of church and chapel in those days 
was the fact that the old clerk, Robert 
Roberts, who led the responses every Sunday 
morning and afternoon in the parish church, 
faithfully attended our chapel in the evenings. 







50 


Old Memories 


The one-sidedness of the squire and his 
wife showed itself mainly in petty favourit¬ 
isms, and only later on did it play a part in 
the letting and refusing of farms to men 
wishing to be tenants. But I pass on from 
this petty and flavourless topic of sectarian 
antagonism, generally so contemptible to 
laymen. 

What did matter was that, if you went 
to the same place of worship as your neighbour, 
other social relations of all kinds were apt 
to spring up between him and you. So that 
the summary effect was the somewhat decisive 
division of the villagers into two communities, 
whose pursuits were not always the same nor 
their purposes always in harmony. They 
voted, for instance, on different sides in 
politics. 

The reader will permit me to dwell a little 
on that which I knew best—the Calvinistic 
chapel community. 

The chapel was close by my home. Its 
southern gable was the boundary wall of my 
grandmother's little garden. Long ago there 
was a window in that gable, and in summer¬ 
time it was usually open ; and many a time 
did my mother listen to the sermon through 




Old Memories 


51 


that open window, as she sat in the garden 
with the baby in her arms and one or more 
of us little ones played about her knees. 

I remember being myself in that garden 
on a Sunday evening, and passing through 
“ a religious experience '' there which I can 
never forget. It was in the year 1859 
possibly, i860. I was about seven years old 
at the time, and the religious Revival was 
on in all its power in all the neighbouring 
dissenting chapels (for some reason or 
another the Church of England was not 
liable to these onsets). The evidence of the 
presence and power of the Spirit was 
overwhelming. Men and women were, quite 
genuinely, beside themselves with religious 
excitement. They broke out in the services, 
glorifying God by the help of hymns and 
verses, and not infrequently in language 
of their own which, owing to their '' exalted ’’ 
condition, was sometimes marvellous in its 
power and beauty. Their voices mingled 
together in a confusion that usually put the 
preacher to silence, and, not seldom, lasted 
far into the night. Often, during those 
months, did I crouch in the bottom of the 
pew in order to escape the waving arms of my 






52 Old Memories 

grandmother—noted for the depth and 
devotion of her religious life. And I, 
occasionally, watched strange scenes amidst 
the excitement. For instance, I saw a farm 
labourer,—a very shoddy character in fact— 
on his knees in the big pew, beat in the 
panels of the pulpit with his bare fists ; and 
I watched the finest of the church elders, 
one of the ablest men I have ever met, go 
from end to end of the chapel and up and down 
its aisles, on his knees praising God all the 
time and manifestly in the power of an over¬ 
whelming force. 

I am not going to discuss either the causes 
or the spiritual value of these religious 
revivals, and I shall say only one thing, 
namely, that to doubt the sincerity of some, 
yea, of most of the revivalists, or the per¬ 
manence of their good effects upon their 
lives, were dishonest and absurd on my part. 

But I must return to the personal incident 
under the chapel window to which I have 
referred, for in its way it is unique. 

The Revival had come to the neighbouring 
chapels ; or, in other words, to put it quite 
frankly as we all thought of it, The Holy 
Spirit,"' the third person in the Trinity, had 









Old Memories 


53 


actually arrived at these chapels and attended 
the meetings. But He had not come into 
otir chapel; and great was the searching of 
'hearts. The prayers of the elders became 
more and more urgent, and the fear grew 
even more grave that possibly some dark 
sin on some one's part in our church kept the 
Holy Spirit away. We were bidden examine 
and humble ourselves anew ! and we did 
so. But at last the Spirit came. It was 
on the evening on which I was in the garden, 
under the chapel window. For, did I not 
hear, and recognise, the voices of the women, 
who were in an ecstatic state, mingling 
with the voice of the preacher, and for a 
while, contending with it in wild confusion ? 
I have said that, at the time, I was about 
seven years old. But that did not protect 
my little child-soul from being suddenly 
overwhelmed by the conviction that I was 
not one of the elect! My reason for this 
conclusion was that when the Holy Spirit 
did come I was not in chapel. Manifestly 
my Calvinistic up-bringing was thorough; 
and even then the main joists of my creed 
were being laid, and by other hands than my 
own. 






54 Old Memories 

I am tempted to cite one other incident 
that goes to show the power of the revival. 
My grandmother’s empty and unused pig¬ 
sty was at the side and behind her house. 
It was a very secret place. No one ever 
passed that way. In that empty pig-sty, 
day by day for many weeks, four or five of us 
schoolboys, all of them a year or two older 
than myself, met after the mid-day meal, 
and before returning to school in the afternoon 
held a prayer-meeting ! We prayed '' for 
the longest,” and “ for the most like ” the 
ruling elder. While one of us prayed, the 
others broke in with a solemn “ H—m,” 
or a loud “ Amen,” or '' Glory to God,” 
(in imitation of our elders of course), in the 
deepest voice we could command. It ought 
not to be necessary to say that we were all 
in dead earnest. 

That set of boys, I may remark in passing 
could not have been quite ‘‘ ordinary,” for 
practically the same group acted together 
in other ways. We persuaded the village 
schoolmaster one winter to open a night 
school, and we attended it till some one of us 
detected his incompetence. Then we left 
him in the lurch and we met together once a 






Old Memories 


55 


week in the squire's gas-works to learn short¬ 
hand. While Peter the gas-man emptied 
and refilled the white-heat retorts we sat 
baking opposite, under the single gas jet. 
In addition, every now and then there were 
competitive meetings or little Eisteddfods, 
whose influence by the by is admirable. 
So that, somehow or other there was always 
something intellectual " going on amongst 
us. We had our aspirations in fact, and 
they did not quite come to nothing." 

The Revival, with all its strange excellencies 
and absurd extravagances, passed off with 
the year i860. Its influence remained. It 
marked men and women who had felt its 
power even although they fell away again. 
They were like trees that had been in a forest 
fire, standing—but leafless. Others lived a new 
life ever after, and no honest man could 
question either its sincerity or its excellence. 
Moreover the little church was " freshened." 
Its religious life owing to its experience of 
the Revival was more intense. 

In ordinary times, as I have already 
hinted, the services in the little chapel were 
of almost daily occurrence; on Monday 
evening there was the weekly prayer-meeting ; 








56 Old Memories 

on Tuesday evening the children's catechising 
meeting ; on Wednesday evening the singing 
meeting ; on Thursday the church meeting in 
which our elders shared their religious 
experiences of the week; and on Friday 
evening the young men's meeting. There 
was no pastor : the church was too small and, 
at that time, the ministry of the Methodists 
was almost itinerant. A pair of old preachers 
would start at home and, preaching two or 
three times every day in different chapels, 
visited before they returned home every 
place of Calvinistic worship in Wales. I 
knew some of these old men. 

As there was no pastor in our chapel the 
weight of '' the good cause," both spiritual 
and temporal, lay naturally on the shoulders 
of the elders. And the elders, I may say, 
were elected “ for life"—unless they fell 
away, which they hardly ever did—and 
they were genuine autocrats. I must not 
pass them without a word or two of each. 

First came John Davies, who lived at 
one time in the thatched old cottage and 
afterwards in the chapel-house. He was 
for a while a crofter holding a little farm 
that kept a cow or two ; but for the greater 







Old Memories 


57 


part of his life he worked as a labourer. 
No one ever doubted the passionate earnest¬ 
ness of his religion, or could forget how his 
public prayers shook him, body and soul. 
But he was passionate also in ways which 
were not always religious. His temper was 
sudden and masterful, and he often said 
things in anger and hurled about reproofs, 
for which his wife, as a rule, sorely repented. 

Then there was Hugh Hughes, a little, 
smart, elderly slater of houses, whose wife 
kept a little shop and whose daughters were 
amongst the leaders of the village fashions. 
He was a very gentle soul, very modest, and, 
indeed, very small. I do not think he ever 
said anything that was not common-place, 
or that was worth the hearing : and the longer 
words in the Bible puzzled him greatly. 
Fortunately, however, the long words brought 
“ a wind upon his stomach'', and thus gave 
him time to spell them ! Everyone respected 
Hugh Hughes, such was his fidelity and 
kindliness and honesty. 

Robert Davies, the big tailor, need cause 
no delay. He was, in every way, ordinary. 
William Ellis, the farmer, was a far more 
living and interesting man : he was a better 








Old Memories 


58 

teacher of his adult class in the Sunday 
School, and he had something more fresh 
to say when he stood up to speak. William 
Ellis was one of my best friends. Many 
an evening, when I was a youth of about 
eighteen, and he a middle-aged man with 
children of my own age, we walked up and 
down the country road that led to his home, 
discussing the things which for both of us at 
that time meant most and were to be sought 
first. 

There remains Robert Hughes, also a farmer. 
He suffered during all his early years from 
ill-health. He was an?able and, in all that 
concerned Wales and its liberation, a highly 
educated and learned man. He was a most 
excellent teacher and, as an impromptu 
public speaker, without a rival in all the 
country side. I owe a great deal to him. 
He took the Sunday School class in hand 
of which, with some four or five boys a little 
older than myself, I was a member, after all the 
other Sunday School teachers had refused to 
have anything to do with us—so endless 
was our mischief. He opened the Bible 
for the first time to me and to the other 
boys, and made us feel something of its 



Old Memories 


5 ? 

qualities. The book of Job, owing to his 
dealing with it during my childhood, has 
been one of my first favourites ever after. 

I cannot pretend to measure the influence 
of the chapel and the traditions which were 
current amongst those who attended it upon 
my life and character. I think my religious 
beliefs are less crude now as well as shorter 
than they were in those days; but the 
essentials of the faith, the hypothesis on 
which I would fain say that my life rests, 
and without which the world would seem 
to me to be a wild chaos and the life of man 
a tragical blunder —that remains the same. 
We certainly wasted none of the opportunities 
that the chapel offered. As a matter of fact 
my mother sent John and me there, where we 
would be safe and out of the way. We were 
there practically every night of the week, 
except Saturdays, and our Sundays were 
especially crowded. I wonder if the Scottish 
Church can beat our record. From 8.30 a.m, 
to 9.30 a.m. there was the young men's 
prayer-meeting which we attended after a 
very hasty breakfast. From 9.30 a.m. to 
10.30 a.m. there was the public prayer¬ 
meeting or a sermon. At 10.40 a.m. I was 







Old Memories 


6o 

in the parish church, singing into the ears 
of the rector’s daughter who sat in front 
of me and played the harmonium. At 
12 noon we had our one meat dinner of the 
week, ending with my mother’s incomparable 
''Pwdin Rice” At i p.m. there was the 
young men’s reading class in which we sat 
till the Sunday School opened at 2 p.m. At 

3.30 p.m. the school closed ; at 4 p.m. we 
had tea ; from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. there was the 
singing meeting ; at 6 p.m. the chapel filled 
for the sermon which usually lasted till 

7.30 p.m.; from 7.30 p.m. to 8 p.m. there was 
the meeting of the church members only, 
mere adherents having gone home. Did 
ever a boy have a better chance of being 
either very religious, or very much the 
opposite ? But so far as I know I was 
neither ; for there were still other influences 
in operation and I shall mention two or 
three of them. 

First, perhaps, came that of music. I 
was passionately fond of music, and it is one 
of the regrets of my life that I did not cling 
to it. On Sunday afternoons, after tea, 
I used to go to help an old man called 
Nathaniel Jones to read the tunes in his 





Old Memories 6i 

hymn book. I was a very little boy, and 
the music was written in the standard 
notation. Then John Cur wen popularized 
the sol-fa system: Eleazar Roberts of 
Liverpool introduced it into Wales; and, 
amongst those who took it up, learning it 
himself while teaching a class of young 
men, was John Price, the schoolmaster of 
the British School at the southern end of 
our parish. I would fain sing the praises of 
John Price, so admirably did he fill his 
place in the neighbourhood. But I shall 
have occasion to return to him. 

Amongst those who attended the sol-fa 
class was my brother William, a joiner, 
a blacksmith, and a sawyer. John and I 
were not allowed to go : we were too young. 
But we broke into the private drawer of our 
big brother, studied his sol-fa lesson books, 
and learnt the system without any teacher. 
I was about ten years of a^e, and had an 
excellent boy’s voice, and, at that time, 
my knowledge of sol-fa was considered 
something of a marvel. Later on I discovered 
how little there is in it—the sol-fa system 
for a musical child is so easy. By and by 
our achievement became known to Price. 








62 Old Memories 

He gave a hint to my big brother that John 
and I might attend the weekly lessons ; 
and I recall with amusement the way in 
which, as we walked the two miles along the 
road to the meeting at Pandy, John instructed 
me how to show my musical prowess. '' When 
I pass from the alto to the soprano, you, 
Harry, pass from the soprano to the 
alto! We’ll make Mr. Price see that we can 
read.” And we did. 

I think that Robert Hughes, the elder, 
must have been a little jealous of Mr. Price 
and the new system. He was the precentor 
in our chapel, and conducted the singing 
meetings in which the psalms and hymn 
tunes were learnt. In one of these, having 
broken down himself over a new hymn-tune, 
he taunted and challenged us sol-fa boys. 
John accepted the challenge on my behalf 
and compelled me to sing the tune, which 
I did all through all alone. Not long after¬ 
wards Robert Hughes ceased to precent or to 
be responsible for the singing in the little 
chapel. My brother William first, and my 
brother John afterwards were elected to 
take his place. 

There is one incident more connected 






Old Memories 63 

with this topic that may be worth describing. 
My father very rarely went into either of 
the two village public houses. But one 
evening he came home from the Stag Inn 
and excitedly asked for me. A farmer over 
his drink had denied my ability to read at 
sight any tune in the church '' Tune-Book.” 
He offered ten pounds against ten shillings ; 
and my father came home to find out from 
my brothers and myself whether he could 
take on the bet. He received from every one 
of us the fullest and most confident 
assurances ; and, with all my soul, I begged 
him to go back and bet. Then '' I would 
have ten pounds to huy a harmonium.'' My 
father did go back, ready to take the bet. 
But the farmer on seeing his readiness 
drew back, and, to my intense disappointment, 
nothing came of the incident. My last chance 
of becoming a musician, if, indeed, there 
ever was a chance, had gone; and, as it 
happened, the current of my life took a quite 
other and unexpected direction. 

The cause of the change looks very remote, 
and in a sense, really was remote. The 
squire had taken to letting his larger farms 
to Scotch tenants—till he learnt his lesson. 








64 


Old Memories 


At one time there was quite a sprinkling 
of Scotsmen in our neighbourhood. The 
head gardener of the squire was one ; the 
chief estate agent (or factor) was another ; 
and there were besides, Mr. Stuart of Cam- 
maes, Mr. Roxburgh of Cae’r Llo, and 
Mr. Borthwick (afterwards a great importer 
of frozen meat and a member of the House 
of Lords) together with their domestic 
servants and shepherds and other dependents. 

These peaceful but energetic invaders of the 
neighbourhood found the winter evenings 
long and dreary. So they took a chief part 
in the starting of Penny Readings.’' The 
meetings were held in the village school, were 
attended joyously by every section of the little 
community, Welsh and Scotch, church and 
chapel, and were presided over, as a rule, 
by the squire. The entertainment was run 
by the villagers themselves, and amongst 
the most frequent of the performers were 
my father’s three boys. Indeed, it was 
to us that messages of distress were sent 
when some singer or reciter broke down, 
or when there was some gap in the programme 
which could not be filled otherwise. We 
could read the sol-fa notation and sing 






65 


Old Memories 

in parts, and we could also act in a little 
scene or recite when necessity called. Things 
went very well, if I remember rightly, for 
at least two winters. Then calamity came. 
One evening Mr. Stuart, one of the Scottish 
farmers, danced a sword-dance in High¬ 
land costume on the little stage, to the 
intense interest of the spectators who had 
never before seen anything of that kind. 
But, alas! the Calvinistic Methodist con¬ 
science was hurt and roused, and from that 
time on the '' Penny Readings lost favour 
and waned to their natural death. 

I can now be more directly relevant, and 
indicate the unexpected significance of these 
'' Penny Readings'' performances to me. 
My father had taken a pair of boots that had 
been repaired to Mr. or Mrs. Roxburgh, or 
possibly to one of the servants, and was 
sitting, as usual after business was over, 
exchanging news in the kitchen, when 
Mrs. Roxburgh came in. Elias! '' she 
says to my father (as he afterwards told me), 
'' I understand that that little boy with 
the red hair and the intelligent face who sang 
so well in the last '' Penny Reading'' is 
your son. Will you send him up to me ? 

5 


/ 







66 


Old Memories 


I think he is fit for something better than 
shoe-making and I should like to talk to 
him/' My father came home, reported to 
my mother, as usual, and a few evenings 
afterwards I was sent up to see Mrs. Roxburgh. 
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Roxburgh, I should 
say in passing, were the most respected 
and the best loved Scotch that ever lived 
in our neighbourhood. They were natives 
of Annan in Dumfrieshire, and had visited 
Llangernyw on their wedding tour and fallen 
in liking with the neighbourhood. Mr. Rox¬ 
burgh then rented a large sheep farm from 
the squire, came for some years, in summer 
only, with his family, and lived in a remote 
farm-house ; and then he took his permanent 
residence at Cae'r Llo, and made his home 
there. The Roxburghs were well-to-do, 
neighbour!}/, and generous almost to a fault. 

Mrs. Roxburgh on being told that I had 
come as she desired, sought me out in the 
kitchen and took me at once into the parlour 
sitting-room. There I saw, for the first time, 
a floor covered by a carpet. Mrs. Roxburgh 
began the process of converting me without 
any delay, making me her own boy" 
there and then. I was, I believe, about 




Old Memories 


67 


fourteen years old at the time, and I had 
been for a little more than a year at the 
making of shoes. You are not made to 
be a shoe-maker,’' she said to me, “you must 
give it up and go to college and become a 
minister.” She knew that my parents were 
quite poor, and that they could not pay my 
college fees, not to speak of maintaining me 
there, or paying for my board and lodgings, 
were it only for a single term. But she had 
seen poor boys clamber into the pulpit in her 
own country ; she had the belief in education 
which was characteristic of her people at that 
time, and she had limitless enthusiasm. 
The prudential considerations which have 
hindered so many possible enterprises were 
quite foreign to her nature. If she thought 
a thing ought to be done, she took it for 
granted that it could be done, and never 
took the trouble of considering what means 
should or could be employed, or what chances 
of succeeding there might be. Given the 
faith, works would follow. Let us but do 
our bit : Providence, always much on the 
alert as Mrs. Roxburgh thought, would do 
the rest. One thing more there was which 
gave edge to her aspirations for me. Her 




68 


Old Memories 


brother, George, once Provost of Annan, 
had studied for the ministry. At one time 
he was, I believe, one of the best students of 
Sir Wm. Hamilton's class. But his health 
gave way. Mrs. Roxburgh's interest in her 
brother's college career had evidently been 
very intense ; she copied his lectures for 
him and gave every proof that his success in 
college was for a time her first ambition. 

For some reason or another, or for none at 
all, Mrs. Roxburgh transferred her college 
ambitions from her brother, and fixed them 
upon me. Week by week from the first night 
on, I was invited up to Cae'r-Llo, and Mrs. 
Roxburgh spent the whole evening counselling, 
warning and encouraging me, and playing the 
piano to my singing. It mattered nothing 
what company she might have in the house. 
She persisted, and, I believe, was well teased 
by her more intimate Scottish friends who, 
every now and then, visited her in Wales. 
I cannot recall many details. But I remember 
that she warned me solemnly against reading 
anything written by Thomas Carlyle—of 
whom, by the by, I had never heard. She 
also lent me Pollock's Course of Time 
praising it in the strongest terms and urging 




Old Memories 


69 


me to read it. More to the purpose were 
successive parts of The Popular Educator 
which I borrowed from her, some of'' the home 
lessons in which I learnt, in an intermittent 
way. But the main factor of the situation did 
not lie in any definite help or guidance that 
she gave me; but in the persistence of 
Mrs. Roxburgh's purpose and, still more 
especially, in that she never concealed her 
wish that I should be '' something better 
than a shoe-maker." There was, she 
firmly held, '' no future " for me in that 
direction. Besides, shoemakers as a rule 
were an intemperate and low set. I ought 
not to be one of them : I ought to become 
a minister. 

It looked for a long time as if all her trouble 
with me was to go for nothing. I stood 
firmly by my shoe-making. I liked it, 
it was a thoroughly respectable trade to 
those who looked after themselves. Look¬ 
ing to the future I saw nothing out of place. 
I was not only to be the best shoe-maker in 
all the country round, but an elder in the 
chapel, and one of the neighbourhood's real 
but uncrowned leaders. Such were the con¬ 
victions on which I took my stand against 




70 


Old Memories 


Mrs. Roxburgh, and I was helped no doubt 
by a pride of my own of which I had 
quite enough, and which, at that time, 
experience had not tamed. And so far as I 
can see, my pride, in that instance, was not 
far out of place. In any case, I continued to 
visit Mrs. Roxburgh week by week for some 
years, holding to my own views and sticking 
to my own purposes. But that never 
weakened her interest in me, or dimmed the 
splendour of her care for the boy of her 
adoption. And it was not Mrs. Roxburgh 
who in the end lost the contest. A time 
came, sudden as lightning, when my purposes 
went with the winds and hers held. But 
that is the theme of the next chapter. 




Old Memories 


Chapter III 


A LAD of my own age, called Tom Redfern, 
had come from Halkyn, near Holywell, 
to the village school of Llangernyw, as a pupil 
teacher. [He is now, and has been for many 
years, the much respected rector of Denbigh, 
and one of the canons of the cathedral of 
St. Asaph.] Somehow or another, in a 
manner which I never quite understood, 
Tom and I became fast friends. Our friend¬ 
ship was contrary to all rule and precedent: 
for he was Conscientious Church,'’ and I was 
'' Conscientious Chapel.” And I think he 
endured some petty persecution on my 
account : for, both in religion and in social 
standing, I was ” beneath ” him. We saw 
each other every day, and were together at 
every interval sharing our views of men and 
events. In short a closer or more inveterate 
friendship there could hardly be. 

One memorable day Tom was allowed by 

the schoolmaster and I by my father to have 

71 




72 Old Memories 

a holiday. WombweH’s menagerie had come 
to Llanrwst, which was only seven miles 
away; and neither Tom nor I had ever seen 
a lion, or tiger, or elephant, or camel, or any 
of the marvels of the animal world. We 
went to Llanrwst early in the day, arriving 
long before the show opened Then we took 
a walk along the streets of Llanrwst with one 
of my second cousins, called Sam Roberts, son 
of a tailor and draper in the town. Looking 
up the street Sam saw a group of disreputable 
loungers hanging around the door of a tavern. 
Then he turned round to me and said, '' Look 
AT YOUR SHOP-MATES, HaRRY ! 

He meant nothing in particular. It was a 
perfectly casual remark on his part. But 
to me it was by far the most startling event 
in my whole life. I was stunned and helpless. 
The things that Mrs. Roxburgh had told 
me were true ! My shop-mates were disre¬ 
putable ! Their companionship in the workshop 
would verily be both unbearable and ruinous. 
Shoe-making held no future that could be 
respectable. Such were the thoughts that 
crowded in upon me. Distrust and deep 
repugnancy at the very thought of spending 
my life at shoe-making took immediate and 





Old Memories 


73 


full possession of me. The views which 
Mrs. Roxburgh had been pouring into my 
soul week by week and year by year had 
accumulated like dammed waters. And now 
the dam had broken and I was swept away 
as by a flood,—helpless, resourceless, hope¬ 
less. No one can pass through an experience 
like mine and deny either the reality or the 
bitterness of sudden and complete conversion. 
And it was permanent : for I never wavered 
afterwards. 

But I made no reply to Sam. I got rid 
of him as soon as I could, and then I went, 
with my friend, Tom, at my side begging me 
to tell what had come over me, and sat on 
the further bank of the river Conway in an 
agony of weeping. 

My whole life seemed to me to have been a 
mistake. It lay in ruins around my feet: 
and it was all from beginning to end my own 
fault. Only one thing remained. I would 
become something better than a shoe¬ 
maker or I would die in the attempt. 

I suppose I must at last have given Tom 
some hint of my trouble. At any rate the 
torture slackened, I became calm, we le^t 
the river-side and entered the show. We 






74 


Old Memories 


stayed there for several hours, and somewhere 
about ten or eleven at night watched the 
animals being fed. Then, after a light supper 
at James Pugh's, the postman's, we started 
through the quiet night on our seven-mile 
walk home, in company for the greater part 
of the way with a third rural visitor to the 
show. 

Left to ourselves, somewhere between one 
and two in the morning, Tom and I faced the 
new life-problem which had sprung upon me. 
It was a lovely summer night and all the 
world was asleep. Then when we were about 
a mile and a half from our village, on the 
bank of a little stream opposite some cottages 
called Tangraig," Tom and I shook hands 
over a solemn oath that, some day, we would 
be graduates of a university. We had 
London University in our minds. It did 
not demand attendance at lectures, or resi¬ 
dence. We could prepare for its examina¬ 
tions wherever we might be and whatever 
our occupation. It was a rather unusual 
proceeding for two boys of sixteen. And we 
kept our oath : a year or two after I graduated 
in the University of Glasgow, Tom graduated 
at Cambridge. 




Old Memories 


75 


But, for some time, nothing was done : 
Tom went on with his work as a pupil-teacher 
and I as a shoe-maker. There was no 
evidence of any outlet for me in any direction, 
nor a glimmer of hope. Indeed, it was not 
easy for me to confess my change of mind to 
my father and mother ; I had insisted so 
wilfully on being a shoe-maker. But my 
father's sympathy was too certain and too 
valuable, and I was working at his side all 
day long, so that the confession was not 
much delayed. They could, however, do 
nothing. They were as helpless as myself. 

One day, after some months of fruitless 
anxiety, my mother went to the other end of 
the parish, which was called Pandy Tudur, 
to attend the funeral of an old lady. After 
it was over it happened that Mr. Price, the 
schoolmaster of whom I have already spoken, 
asked her and her companion, a Mrs. Parry, 
wife of our village blacksmith, to tea, before 
they started on their two-mile walk home. 
Over the tea-cups my mother told Mr. Price 
of my '' uneasiness," and in her sudden way, 
full of insight, asked him " Is it not possible 
to make him into a schoolmaster." Mr. 
Price was full of sympathy with the design, 





76 Old Memories 

but pronounced it beyond the power of my 
parents to carry it out. ''You cannot afford 
it, Mrs. Jones bach (dear), he said, "You 
would have to keep him at his studies for at 
least three years before he could enter 
college ; and it would be two years more 
before he would be making his own livelihood. 
It is too heavy a burden for you and Elias 
Jones. But send the boy here to me ! 
Three months of school, at his age, will be 
invaluable to him whatever he is going to 
be ; and if he is as smart over his lessons as 
he was over singing the sol-fa notation he 
should do very well." 

Such was the suggestion brought home by 
my mother. I was to go to school at Pandy, 
where there was always a bench of grown-up 
lads when work on the farms was slack ; and 
I was to stay there for three months and see 
whether " something would not turn up." 

It was the year 1869, and the year was at 
the spring, for I remember well discussing 
the project with my father while we planted 
potatoes, in accordance with a very old 
custom, in a neighbouring farmer’s field; 
and discussing it ad nauseam had it not been 
my father. I did not like it. It might end 






Old Memories 


77 


in failure and in my being sent back to shoe¬ 
making, and so on. But there was no 
alternative, except that I was to see Mr. Price 
first. So, one afternoon I went, with a 
burden of boots on my back both repaired 
and new which I had to leave at cottages 
and farm-houses on the way, and saw and 
had a good talk with Mr. Price. In the 
meantime he had been considering my case 
in his wise way ; and he had formed another 
plan. I was to attend school for an indefinite 
period on three days of every week, and to 
pay for my keep by working at my trade on 
the other three days. 

My joy in the new method had no bounds. 
I left Mr. Price’s house about nine or nine- 
thirty in the evening, ran towards home 
from sheer gladness of heart for a full mile, 
and then I turned into an old quarry by the 
side of the road, and opposite to the farm of 
Ty’n Ddol. There I poured forth my soul 
in gratitude to Him, who, as I believed and 
still believe, grants to mankind the oppor¬ 
tunities of learning goodness. Then I hurried 
to my crowded wee home, told the new plan 
to my father and mother, and that very 
night hunted out an old book of geography 






78 


Old Memories 


and began to learn the names of the counties 
of England. I had my chance, and I was 
going to seize it. 

On the following Monday morning, it must 
have been in May or early in June, I might 
have been seen between eight and nine making 
for the Pandy School along the quiet country 
road. On arriving I was put at a desk, 
pretty well by myself, and not inserted in 
any children's class. There books were given 
me, till I could get my own ; and, above all, 
'' sums " were set me to work out, in '' Rule 
of Three " and ‘‘ Weights and Measures.” 
I had forgotten the Weights and Measures,” 
but by no means the multiplication table ; 
and before long, I was forging ahead through 
Fractions, Vulgar, and Decimal, and on to 
Simple and Compound Interest, Tare and 
Tret ” and so forth. But my progress in 
grammar was slower and much more laborious. 
I had been ill-taught in the village school, and 
the effects lasted, as they always do in matters 
pf life, and character. 

Meantime, on alternate days, that is, on 
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I worked 
at my trade ; and, by this time, I sat opposite 
the window instead of the workman, and 




Old Memories 


79 


side by side with my father. But every 
jot of enjoyment and of enterprise in the 
shoe-making had departed, and I used every 
possible occasion to slip out in order to recall 
some date in history, or, to solve some 
problem in arithmetic. 

Tom Redfern, as a matter of course, knew 
all about the turn which my affairs had taken ; 
and, being always the very essence of prudence 
and common sense, he made fun of my 
enthusiasm and predicted that in a week or 
two it would pass off. The very opposite 
happened. 

One mid-day, with a part of his dinner in 
his hand, Tom ran over to see me. I gave 
him a hint, we left the workshop together, and 
crossed the style to the field at the back of 
the house. There I sat down and put into 
Tom’s hands a problem in arithmetic I had 
been trying in vain to solve ; and at the same 
time I had another try at it myself. As it 
happened the first to find the answer was 
myself, and the little incident had a big 
result. Tom was shaken out of his compla¬ 
cency, he caught my enthusiasm and he took 
up his studies in a manner he had never done 
before. I had, in reality, the better chance, 




8 o 


Old Memories 


and before long I caught him up and passed 
him. And he knew it for he took his lessons 
from me, especially in geometry and in 
grammar, in both of which subjects the 
teaching of the village school was hopelessly 
incompetent. Mr. Price, on his part, was 
in no sense a scholar. Ploughboy, as he had 
been, and only a few months in a London 
Training College, he never had a chance ; 
and the English he spoke was very imperfect. 
But he had plenty of good sense and shrewd¬ 
ness ; and, after the first few months, never 
meddled with me, except in the way of 
encouragement. It was long afterwards that 
he confessed how he feared to be found out 
by me—for, as he said ‘'You had no common- 
sense ! and it would never have done."' 

But I must enter somewhat more fully 
into the details of this period of my double¬ 
life, half of it in school, and half in the shoe¬ 
maker’s shop. 

The plan of going to school every other 
day was never altered. On the contrary, 
under every kind of pressure, my father 
permitted me to be faithful to it. And for a 
month prior to the examination for the 
Queen’s Scholarship, my father relieved me 





Old Memories 


8 i 


from making shoes. Neither did I go to 
school. I spent the whole month recapitu¬ 
lating/' in the empty and fireless chapel, 
where I walked to and fro all day long— 
'' cramming " as idlers would say,'' working " 
and working very hard so far as I can see. 
After the examination I was to repay my 
father with a month of unbroken shoe-making. 
Except during that time every Monday, Wed¬ 
nesday, and Friday found me in the British 
School, at Pandy, a good two miles from my 
home ; and the other four days of the week 
found me at home. 

But, in every other respect, there was a 
frequent change of plans. When the turmoil 
in our little kitchen proved insurmountable, I 
studied at my grandmother's next door at 
times. At other times I went in deepest 
secrecy to the cellar under Hafodunos Hall 
with one of my brothers, who happened to be 
responsible for keeping up the fire that heated 
the pipes which went round the house. He 
would leave me there, where there was a gas 
jet, and late at night I would make for home. 
It was in that cellar that I learnt the history 
of Henry VII, I remember, in Rosss text¬ 
book, all in one‘evening. 


6 





82 


Old Memories 


For a while, in summer, Tom Redfern flung 
gravel about 4 a.m. at my bed-room window, 
and, much more frequently, I flung gravel at 
his, till his landlady interfered, and gave me 
a vigorous '' hearing/' 

The next move was that my brother, John, 
and I, not without some difficulty persuaded 
my mother to let us sleep in the bed at the 
dark end of the workshop. For John was 
also studying, in preparation for the examina¬ 
tion of which I have already spoken. Once 
installed in the workshop and work was over, 
John and I could do as we pleased. And our 
plan was for me to go to bed very early, say 
about 8 p.m., if the workshop was clear, and 
at I a.m. John wakened me and went to bed 
himself. But the strain on him proved too 
heavy, for he worked fairly hard in the day¬ 
time, and our mother struck in and put an 
end to the matter so far as John was con¬ 
cerned. 

We had heard moreover, that “ one hour 
before midnight was worth two after mid¬ 
night." So I continued to go to bed as early 
as I could, say from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and 
about one in the morning, before he went to 
bed himself, the village policeman came, every 




Old Memories 


83 


night, and tapped at the workshop window 
to awaken me. I got up, dressed, planted a 
small table before my seat, and my feet in a 
basket of broken pieces of leather, and sat 
working at my books, and working with all 
my might, throughout the small hours and 
till morning came. I wonder if the reader 
can guess the joy with which I heard the 
clatter of the breakfast tea-cups and the 
other sounds which showed that my mother 
was up. 

'' A hard life,” you remark ; and I reply 
'' Most certainly ! ” Few growing boys could 
have stood it ; and many a time did my 
father try to persuade me to adopt some 
easier plan. But the resolve to gain a 
Queen’s Scholarship and the right of becoming 
a student at the Bangor Training College for 
Teachers, was a madness in my blood. 

Easier methods were not altogether out of 
reach; at one time I was tempted to adopt 
one of them, and in a manner that always 
reminds me of Bunyan’s Pilgrims at By-path 
Meadow. 

The Squire’s wife, a most inveterate prosely- 
tizer, came one summer afternoon, sat on a 
chair outside the workshop, opposite the door, 





84 


Old Memories 


and suggested a most seductive plan. She 
told me that there was a preparatory class 
at the Carnarvon Church of England College 
for Teachers, expressly intended for young 
fellows, who, like me, wished to enter. She 
would contribute to my maintenance there, 
I rather think that she offered to maintain 
me there altogether. And my chances of 
passing would be much greater ; I should 
have all my time for study, and I should 
have the guidance and the help of qualified 
college teachers, instead of casual lessons 
from the teacher of an Elementary School. 
What more could I desire ? I would have 
given almost anything for such an opportunity. 

But there was one obstacle. Entrance 
into that college meant becoming a member 
of the Church of England. I was not prepared 
for that change ; and it was precisely the 
desire to lead me to make that change which 
moved her to offer to take charge of me and 
my destiny. It was an exact expression of 
her sectarian zeal, and an admirable instance 
of her proselytizing methods. She was offer¬ 
ing a most tempting bribe. 

I answered by raising an issue which I 
knew was quite secondary. I told her. and 





Old Memories 


85 


proved by quotation from the Government 
blue-book that Bangor College was the better 
college of the two ; and I made no reference 
to what amounted to me to ''a change of 
religion/' She also was shy of the real issue. 
As to my parents, my father took no side in 
the matter. He simply told me to do as I 
liked. But somehow I felt that he approved 
of my resistance to the lure. My mother 
was more indifferent ; though, I believe, with 
a slight leaning to the opposite side. She 
saw no harm in my becoming a parson 
provided I was a good parson. She did 
not realize the significance of the fact that 
it was a question of principle to me. To ‘‘go 
over to the Church " would have been for me 
at that time “ the grand betrayal." My 
character thereafter would have been broken- 
backed. And although the time might come, 
as it has come, when such sectarian differences 
would be to me simply contemptible, I should 
all the same consider that I had chosen the 
meaner course. 

So although, like Christian, I climbed the 
stile, and saw a path lie along by the way, on 
the other side of the fence, and that there 
was the easiest going, I clung to my own, 





86 


Old Memories 

rougher road. The decisive refusal came a 
little later—there was an interview at the 
Hall between the Squire's wife and myself in 
which she lost patience and sniffed at some¬ 
thing concerned with the chapel. Then I, 
in reply, broke out, saying that she might 
say anything she liked of me, but she should 
not scoff at the chapel and my religion in 
my hearing; and 1 struck the table and 
walked out of the Hall. Not long afterwards 
her husband sent me a present of one of his 
old overcoats, as a peace-making gift, I 
believed. But the overcoat, bless the mark ! 
did not put out my wrath. On the contrary 
I had a row with my parents, because they 
would not let me send it back 1 I would fight 
my own battle without the help of either 
squire or dame. 

If the reader calls these incidents petty, I 
shall agree with him with all my heart. But 
if he remembers that I would have given my 
life at that time to pass the examination, and 
that it was hard to have no help to pass except 
that of an elementary schoolmaster and little 
leisure for study except every other day, he 
will admit that “ the trial was sore, and the 
temptation sharp." Even yet I cannot admit 


/ 






Old Memories 


87 


that “ to master it and make it crouch beneath 
my foot/’ was an insignificant matter, even 
though it was very small. The refusal was 
a very wholesome act, and I could ''go on 
my way rejoicing.” 

The examination for the Queen’s Scholar¬ 
ship was in December : and it was coming 
near. Candidates who had not been pupil 
teachers, had to be at least eighteen years of 
age, and, unless they passed in the first class, 
must pay an entrance fee of 10 /-. These 
conditions being fulfilled, the student, once 
he had entered college, was maintained alto¬ 
gether by the authorities, who, in turn, 
received Government grants for that and 
other purposes. 

But there was one other condition of a 
preliminary kind—a condition that was in 
practice purely formal. The candidate had 
to produce a certificate of character from the 
minister of his church. As I have said, the 
Calvinistic Methodist chapel in our little 
village had no minister : my father, therefore, 
naturally asked the rector, who knew me 
from my babyhood, to give the required 
certificate. He refused, exhibiting thereby 
the narrowest and unkindest bigotry. My 






88 Old Memories 

father never forgave him, or attended the 
parish church services any more. At first 
the obstacle looked very serious ; but a little 
enquiry brought out the fact that a chapel 
elder’s certificate would serve the turn equally 
well; and that was easily obtained. 

At last the day of the examination arrived. 
I had the right to compete, for I had just 
turned eighteen. My two brothers equipped 
me for the examination in the manner I have 
already described, and I faced the ordeal as 
best I could. We stayed at the college during 
the days of examination and became more 
or less acquainted with one another. I was 
appalled by the look of cleverness that my 
competitors carried and by their confidence ; 
and I found out that while I had begun to 
prepare only some eighteen months before, 
and that under difficult circumstances, they 
had been preparing under much better con¬ 
ditions for four, five, or even six years. I 
did my best, but I had no jot or tittle of hope. 
One day, one of the college teachers, Mr. John 
Thomas, called me up to him when I 
was leaving the table at which all the candi¬ 
dates dined together. It was to tell me that 
I was doing very well, but that it was a 





Old Memories 89 

mistake to disfigure my papers by writing 
above the top line and beneath the lowest 
line.* 

I took his action to spring from sympathy 
with a candidate who, he knew, had no 
chance of entering ; and his kindness alto¬ 
gether overpowered me. I wept like a child : 
I was much over-strained. 

After a few days, I returned home to my 
father and my work, a much saddened lad ; 
and, telling my father and mother that I had 
failed, I resumed the shoe-making, working 
all the days of the week. But I did not 
despair ; nor dream of giving up the adven¬ 
ture. I was going to try again the following 
December. But a new idea dawned upon 
our minds. Could I not get an appointment 
as an uncertified undermaster in one of the 
larger schools ? It was worth trying, more 
especially because some months previously I 
had won certificates and also a prize from 
“ The Society of Arts and Science,'’ and I 
could use these to support my claim. So I 

* H. J. wrote above the top and below the lowest 
line, because (rightly or wrongly) he thought the amount 
of paper allowed to candidates was limited, and he had 
more to say than he had room for. 






90 


Old Memories 


borrowed copies of The Schoolmaster, looked 
up the advertisements, and to my intense 
satisfaction was appointed a junior, the most 
junior of the masters of a school at Ormskirk, 
near Liverpool. 

The school was private, a kind of Grammar 
School. It was attended by boys whose 
parents were in easy circumstances, or socially 
ambitious, and a number of them were 
resident. It was a new life for me, totally 
different from that which I had led at home ; 
and my responsibilities were as alien as if I 
had been one of the Esquimaux or a Red 
Indian. I don’t think it took the boys five 
minutes, after they first saw me, to give me 
a new name. They welcomed me as '' Copper- 
Knob.” And I could not have been doing 
well, otherwise the headmaster would scarcely 
have roared at me from the other end of the 
school, when it was full of boys. But I did 
not lack independence; I had probably much 
more than I was entitled to have ; so, as 
soon as there was a pause in the school-work, 
I asked to see him in his private room and I 
told him of a better way of behaving to me ! 

I believe that the headmaster was a true 
gentleman. At any rate, we parted with 






_ Old Memories 91 

our respect for each other considerably deep¬ 
ened. A week or ten days later, I was at 
his feet a very humble suppliant, craving a 
favour. Two letters had been put in my 
hands, one from my brother and one from 
the college authorities at Bangor. The latter 
informed me that I had passed in the First 
Class, and at the top of the list, and was to 
present myself at college and begin my 
residence there without delay. The former 
was full of angry words, because I had been 
so impatient and had been allowed to seek 
and accept a post before the results of the 
examination were known. '' I would have 
tied him to the foot of the table rather than 
let him go/' said William to my father,for I 
was sure that he would pass the examination.’' 

And now I had to ask the headmaster to 
set me free ; and to his real inconvenience he 
did so, saying that he would not stand in the 
way of my future, which he believed would 
be very bright. Then I went and packed the 
little, red, wooden box which had belonged 
to my father and which carried my clothing. 
I left my waistcoat near the top. I intended 
pawning it in Liverpool on my way through : 
for I had not enough money to pay the train 






Old Memories 


92 

all the way to Abergele. However the 
necessity of becoming acquainted with the 
pawnshop never arose. In bidding me good¬ 
bye the headmaster put a ten-shilling piece 
into my hand, for my week's services. I 
regret deeply that I have forgotten his name. 
His kindness I shall never forget. 

I arrived at Abergele with the last train, 
somewhere about 10 p.m. ; and, after a bite 
of supper at the house of one for whom I had 
often thinned turnips in the past, when she 
farmed near Llangernyw, I started on my 
walk of ten miles and three-quarters, along 
the lonely, quiet country road, meeting 
nobody at that hour. It was Saturday, or 
rather by this time, Sunday morning. I was 
to be in college on Monday. On the way 
home I was feeling at once very happy, and 
very unlike myself. I was, in fact, very ill: 
after walking some couple of miles I felt the 
road reeling all round me, and I kept my feet 
by clinging to a gate at the side. How long 
I was there I cannot say, nor do I remember 
anything else on the way home. I arrived 
there about four in the morning and my 
mother made me a cup of tea. Then I 
slipped into bed by John’s side, and was about 




Old Memories 


93 


to get up for chapel in the morning when he 
called my mother and told her I was ill. She 
rushed upstairs at once, and sent for Nathaniel 
Jones, the local farrier. Either on the way 
to the station when I left home for Ormskirk 
on that memorable bright and cold winter 
morning, sometimes walking beside, and at 
other times sitting in the cart which was 
conveying my box to the station ; or else 
at the school, I had caught a cold, which 
turned into what was then called “ inflama- 
tion of the bowels.'’ The country doctor was 
sent for ; and from blotches which had broken 
out on my limbs and the fact that I had been 
away from home he diagnosed small-pox ! ! 
and treated me accordingly. But, as usual 
in my life, Scotland came to the rescue. 
Mr. Stuart of Cammaes was very ill. The local 
doctor was permitted to bring in a consultant 
—a Dr. Turner from Denbigh. Being very 
friendly with my father, the local doctor 
brought Dr. Turner to see me. He discovered 
at once what was the matter and changed the 
treatment. In about six weeks I was in the 
college at Bangor, so thin, and looking so ill, 
that, just for a little while, my fellow-students 
kept aloof from me for fear of some contagion. 




94 


Old Memories 


I spent two very happy years at the 
Bangor Normal College. We were fed simply, 
but most wholesomely ; the regulations as to 
sleep and work were most sensible, and, of 
course, the companionship was perfect. But 
when I came to look back upon much of the 
work we were given to do there, it was with 
feelings of deep resentment. The tutor from 
whom we learnt our mathematics, Mr. John 
Thomas, we found in every way admirable. 
He was patient, methodical, honest, and 
thorough. After the training I had received 
at his hands, the mathematical work I had 
to do in order to pass into the university and 
win its degree was comparatively easy. But 
it was otherwise with our study of English, 
and of history, etc. In these departments, 
methods of shameless cramhad been 
adopted ; and it was not till I was in Professor 
NichoPs class, in the University of Glasgow, 
that I had even a glimpse or bare conception 
of what one of the greatest of our national 
treasures meant, namely, our literature. We 
analysed, parsed, and paraphrased every 
passage in Julius Ccesar, the play prescribed, 
and we could repeat most of it by heart ; 
but we were never induced nor encouraged to 








Old Memories 


95 


read any other of Shakespeare’s plays, nor 
to acquaint ourselves with any one of the 
great classical writers. Thomas Carlyle was 
a discovery of my own : I happened, while 
standing on the ladder in the library, to open 
Sartor where Teufelsdrokh, sitting in his 
tower, describes the seething city-life beneath 
him. I sat on the ladder, reading on and on. 
It was a case of love at first sight, and my 
young admiration has but deepened with the 
years. 

The Principal gave us a Bible lesson once 
a week; otherwise, so far as I can remember, 
we did not see him. It was Mr. Thomas who 
did his best for the students of that college 
and gained their lasting trust and affection. 

During the two years I spent at Bangor 
College, my eldest brother was gardener at 
Bodlondeb, near Menai Bridge, in the service 
of a wealthy and unique old bachelor, called 
Robert Davies. My brother lodged with the 
old man who looked after the Suspension 
Bridge, in a cottage built at its Anglesey end. 
I used to visit him on our half-holidays, on 
Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, taking 
with me one or more of my college friends. 
We thought the tea at which we sat with him 





96 


Old Memories 


superb ; and a more warm-hearted welcome 
than that which went with it was not possible. 
At one time several weeks elapsed without 
my going to see him ; and he scolded me 
well. I did not confess to him that I hadn't 
a penny to pay the toll for crossing the bridge. 
At another time I remember receiving a 
present from my father ; and I confess that, 
even yet, I take a kind of pathetic pride in it. 
It consisted of five penny stamps. * Certainly, 
I was. poor 1 but I never felt the poverty 
pinch, and a more free and independent soul 
there could hardly be. I had no money 
about me ; but I needed none. The college 
fed me far better than I was fed elsewhere ; 
and I was quite decently clad. The village 
tailor had, most willingly, undertaken to 
supply me with all the clothes I would require, 
and I was to pay him with the first money I 
earned as a schoolmaster. 

So far as I can remember there were no 
exciting incidents during my two years at 
Bangor. We attended concerts occasionally, 
and sang in chorus under the leadership of 

* His father got a sixpence for some odd job, and 
there were only five penny stamps because the sixth was 
used on the envelope. 





Old Memories 


97 


Mr. Thomas. At his bidding also I sang bass 
solos on more than one occasion ; and also 
recited, once at Menai Bridge carrying the 
audience with me in imagination over the 
Niagara Falls. It was all a very innocent 
and simple-minded life. And I had what 
was to me a matter of deep satisfaction at the 
time, the pleasure and honour of keeping my 
place throughout at the top of the college list. 

But I never deemed myself in any sense a 
favourite of any of my teachers. One reason 
was that in every instance of a college row 
I was in arms against the authorities ; and 
another was that I was proud and fiery to an 
absurd degree. ''You will do well as a 
schoolmaster,” said my best friend, Mr. 
Thomas, to me, " provided you don't quarrel 
with your committee.” My resignation, as 
I shall relate hereafter, was in the hands of the 
committee in about a week after I had 
entered its service ! 

I must, however, return to the college. 
On the evening of the last day of our last 
year, it was the habit of the Principal to call 
the students one by one to his private room ; 
and there, in the presence of Mr. Price or 
Mr. Thomas, he assigned a school to them. 

7 





98 


Old Memories 

We could either accept or refuse ; but I 
think we invariably accepted. He had 
already virtually decided matters by corres¬ 
pondence with the local school committees. 
At last I was called in to find Mr. Thomas 
with the Principal; and the Principal told 
me that he regretted that for the present he 
could offer me no school. My disappointment 
was deep, but, as a matter of course, turned 
into angry resentment on the spot.* ''It is 
what I expected,"' I said, " and I don't care. 
I shall go on with my trade." '' What is 
your trade ? " asked the Principal. '' Shoe¬ 
making, sir," I said,'' and I am not ashamed 
of my trade." I could see Mr. Thomas sitting 
back and shaking with laughter. He knew 
that the Principal had once been a tailor and 
that the memory brought him anything but 
pleasure. 

On the morrow I went home. The day 

* The better normal students naturally got the better 
schools. They were often awarded more or less in 
order of merit by the college authorities. Henry Jones 
had passed out of the Normal College at the head of 
the list, and considered he had a fair claim to a school. 
He thought at the time that he had been “ passed over,” 
for a school, because of his share in student rows with 
the powers that be. Hence the resentment. 








Old Memories gg 

after I had my leather apron on, and I was 
extraordinarily proud of my humility as I 
worked at my father’s side : '' The brightest 
scholar in college condescending to make 
shoes ! ” was that not a spectacle for men and 
angels ? 

This folly lasted for some few weeks, when 
the Principal invited me to see him. I found 
on arrival that, in accordance with the 
resolution of the committee of the college, 
he could offer me a temporary tutorship at 
the college pending the coming of a new and 
permanent tutor. 

It was in the mind of the college authorities, 
and of the Principal himself to propose this 
at the time of my interview with him, and 
I was much ashamed of myself. I was to 
share the Principal’s sitting-room, a cup-board 
in which was emptied in order to make room 
for my books. I was ashamed to find that the 
whole of them would not fill one shelf, such 
had been my literary training 1 I had not, in 
fact, “ learnt to read in any full meaning 
of that phrase. 

The responsibilities of my new office were 
not light, and my task was not easy. 
Amongst other things, on most days of the 






100 


Old Memories 


week, it was my business to secure and 
preserve order during the evening hours of 
private study, and even to see the students 
into their dormitories. There were some 
sixty of them, mostly about my own age, and 
a half of them, now second-year students, had 
been fellow-students of mine the year before. 

Things might have gone wrong, but some¬ 
how they did not. The second-year students 
formally resolved to support my authority 
in every possible way; and started that 
unbroken course of gentlemanly and respect¬ 
ful behaviour which I have experienced from 
students for nearly fifty years. 

I cannot now remember what, in addition 
to music, I was responsible for teaching ; and, 
except for the fact that the three or four 
months passed most happily and for my close 
intimacy and love for Mr. Thomas, that 
period of my life is now as a dream. 

The tutor was about to arrive. The com¬ 
mittee of a school connected with the iron 
and tin works and probably with the coal¬ 
mines at Brynamman, the workers in which 
all paid a poundage towards the school’s 
support, were advertising for a master. I 
applied and I was appointed. 





Old Memories 


Chapter IV 


TT was in the early part of the year 1873 
that I took charge of the Elementary 
School at Brynamman. I was then twenty 
years of age. 

Brynamman is a mining village on the 
borders of Carmarthenshire and Glam¬ 
organshire ; and fifty years ago, in addition 
to coal-mining, the smelting of iron and the 
making of tin were carried on. It was my 
first acquaintance with miners and puddlers 
and iron and tin-workers. 

The school was new : the boundary walls 
had not been built. It consisted of one 
long room with several large windows and 
a separate porch and lobby for the boys and 
the girls, together with a class-room opening 
out of it; and there were about 190 children's 
names on the school register. It is almost 
a matter of course that a man’s successor as a 
schoolmaster hears that the school has been 
neglected. In this instance I believe the 

lOl 






102 


Old Memones 


charge was to a great extent true. The 
number of children on the school books 
should have been considerably larger, judging 
by the size and number of the families in 
the neighbourhood. Their attendance was 
very irregular, and there was an atmosphere 
of leisure and boredom about the school, 
which is not a good sign. No lessons at all 
were given to, or required of, the four '' pupil- 
teachers’’ of whose education the head¬ 
master had special charge ; and the natural 
consequence was their neglect of their studies 
and weak official reports. 

These circumstances were obviously my 
opportunities ; and in some respects I was 
well equipped for making the best use of 
them. I was full of enthusiasm, both for 
education in general and for my own office. 
The proof of this was convincing; for on 
my way to Brynamman to take charge of 
the school, both of my elder brothers met 
me at Chester; and, as we all three sat 
on a bench in the public park there, I per¬ 
suaded them both to give up their situations 
as head-gardeners and follow me to Bryn¬ 
amman in order to recommence their studies. 
For some time the three of us lodged together 





Photo by] 


[Andrews, Stvansea. 


THE 

WILLIAM. 


THREE BROTHERS 
HENRY. 


JOHN. 





I 




Old Memories 


103 


at the house of the minister of the Independent 
chapel. But after some months, William 
found the elementary studies irksome ; he 
returned to his calling and became the head- 
gardener of the Godsalls of Iscoed Hall, 
near Whitchurch, Shropshire. John stayed 
with me much longer. 

Besides enthusiasm I had health, and 
abundant energy. I doubt if there was a 
boy in the whole school who enjoyed the 
mid-day games more than I did; and on 
many an afternoon the interval for games 
was unconsciously prolonged and the children 
were in the playground with me, when we 
ought to have been at our lessons in the 
school. 

I was exceedingly happy while at Bryn- 
amman. For some reason or another the 
neighbourhood was at my back, from the 
first : I felt the goodwill of my neighbours, 
and their readiness to approve anything 
I did—if it was at all possible. Moreover, 
the school-flourished amazingly. In a few 
months the names on the school-register 
had gone up from some 190 to over 430. 
The long room and class-room were over¬ 
crowded ; there was no room for the children 








104 


Old Memories 


on its floor; I had classes in the open-air, 
in the play-ground, when the weather was 
fine. When it was wet, I crowded classes 
into the lobbies, where the boys hung their 
caps, and the girls their hats and cloaks, 
and crammed the children amongst the wet 
clothing in the bad atmosphere. Although 
the school was new, an addition had forth¬ 
with to be built to it, as large as the original 
building. 

In all my work I was loyally supported 
by the young lads I had as '' pupil-teachers '' 
and by my brother, John. He had been 
appointed '' Assistant Master," though un¬ 
certified ; and he was known, by young and 
old as, John, hrawd Mishtir "—the South 
Wales version of John, Master’s brother ’’— 
a rather humilating title for an elder brother. 
He was undoubtedly '' a born teacher.’’ 
The children were extravagantly fond of 
him. They were soft wax in his hands; 
but I must also add that he was apt to be 
soft wax in theirs. And his methods were 
unique. The progress of the class which 
happened to be in his care was always 
amazing: but so was the noise it made. 
For that reason it was arranged that the 







Old Memories 


105 


class in his care should meet, not in the 
big room, but in the class-room by itself. 
But even that precaution was not adequate 
at all times. I remember going to him there 
one day and expostulating with him on account 
of the row. Leave me alone,'’ he replied, 
'' they are learning like anything." Well!" 
I answered, no one else can learn ! What 
in the world are you doing with them ? " 
He explained. He had hit on a new and 
most admirable plan. ''You see," said he, 
" I have told the boys that those who are 
long over their sums, and whose sums are 
wrong in the end, are just donkeys. Now, 
donkeys are made to x carry. Very well 1 
the three boys at the top of the class, whose 
sums are right and first finished, are 
allowed to ride three times round the class 
on the backs of the three boys at the bottom 
of the class." This, I thought, was to 
outrun all limits, and John, most reluctantly, 
gave up his novel method of eliciting hard 
work. 

Personally, I do not think that I showed any 
originality, except, perhaps, in the way of 
school punishment. I had seen enough as a 
child of the miscellaneous and continual 




io6 Old Memories 

use of the cane. I thought '' corporal 
punishment should be rare, and the master’s 
last resource. Moreover, I think it was in 
the Life of Arnold of Rugby that I had learnt 
that the punishment ought to fit the crime, 
and, if possible, make it ridiculous. 

An example or two will make my method 
clear. Soon after I went there as head¬ 
master I caught a boy making faces at me— 
behind my back. The class, of which he 
was a member, sat at the time in the desks ; 
so I invited him to come out in front and make 
faces in a way that let every one see him. 
He was very unwilling: and I had to be 
imperious and put on compelling threats. 
I told him that I was going round the school, 
and if he did not make faces for the class to 
see him, before I came back, I should punish 
him. This process had to be repeated. The 
lad found it difficult to make faces to order, 
and I was very loath to give up my plan. 
But, at last, a roar of laughter from the 
class told me that the boy had obeyed. I 
found him blubbering and sent him to his 
place ; and, so far as I know, the custom of 
making faces died on the spot. There was 
no longer any merit or fun in it. 








Old Memories 107 

Let me give you another example. There 
were two boys in the upper class who seemed 
to me to be constitutionally and incorrigibly 
lazy. They would loll at their desks, and 
lie their whole length on the bench when 
they got an opportunity, and I frequently 
reproved and warned them. But I could 
think of no good method of dealing with 
their habit, far less of breaking it. However, 
there was a long table in the big room ; 
and one warm summer afternoon, when being 
lazy was almost pardonable, having caught 
the boys lounging, I spread some girls' 
cloaks on the table and made a comfortable 
bed on it, and ordered the boys to take 
off their boots, and climb up and lie down, 
while I “ lapped " them round in the most 
motherly fashion I could command. I 
intended to make the boys ridiculous. But 
it seemed for a time as if my plan was going 
to fail; for the boys were big, and they 
looked like being shrewd enough to take 
it all in fun. However, to do so, proved to be 
beyond their power. One of them began 
to cry, and before long the other joined him. 
Then I pretended that I thought they were 
not comfortable, and brought more clothes; 






io8 


Old Memories 


but I had to relent, and let off the two lads 
sadly humbled. Ever after that a reminding 
look was enough of a spur to either of them. 

Experience of some parts of the Highlands 
has taught me what tidy and cleanly homes 
Welsh wives and mothers secure for their 
husbands and children. This was true even 
of the mining village of Brynamman. Miners' 
and puddlers' and iron-smelters' children, as 
those who came under my charge all were, 
they were kept very neat and clean. Never¬ 
theless, in summer, when the roads and the 
play-ground were dusty and the children 
grew hot over their games, they were apt 
to come to school, especially in the after¬ 
noons, with hands and faces which were not 
clean. I warned the school repeatedly, with¬ 
out any discernible result; and at the same time 
I tried to think of a way of dealing with the 
matter. So one especially hot day, I let the 
children play rather longer than usual at 
mid-day, called them hurriedly into the 
school, and, for the first lesson, went on as 
usual. At the end of the first lesson, every 
slate and book was put aside, and the children 
were told to sit still. Then I called up 
into the middle of the room some eight or 




Old Memories 


109 

nine boys whose faces, as I had ascertained, 
were picturesque with dirt, and who, I thought, 
would stand the ordeal in a good-humoured 
way. Then I sent out for water in the 
school buckets, and also for soap and clean 
dusters. When all was ready I stripped 
off my coat, turned up my sleeves, rubbed 
the faces of the boys well with a long bar 
of soap, handed the boys over to the pupil- 
teachers to dry, and sent them back to their 
places. If a boy showed signs of breaking 
down, I spared him at once. But most of 
the group joined heartily in the fun of the 
school, which was uproarious ; for, of course, 
order had gone with the winds. But 
a word restored it. The children returned 
to their places and the school resumed 
its work. That night the tale of the washing 
was told in every home, and it was enjoyed. 
The parents flung their influence on my 
side and for months afterwards, when the 
bell rang for the resumption of school in the 
afternoon, both sides of the stream that 
flowed near by, could be seen lined with 
school children washing their hands and 
faces. The School Inspector could hardly 
have approved my methods : but he did not 




no 


Old Memories 


know about them. And I recognise quite 
clearly that they might not have suited 
another teacher, or even another locality. 
Nevertheless, I cannot pretend to repent. 
They were so effective and so good-naturedly 
backed by the parents. 

But undoubtedly that which helped most 
to win for me the support of the homes, and 
the perfect discipline of goodwill of the 
children in the school, was the school music. 
For everything was not altogether easy 
at first. I have already mentioned the 
slackness in the school: I could have added 
that the interest of the parents in it was very 
low. But at times they made it exceedingly 
lively. It was a custom, mainly amongst 
mothers, to come to the school every now 
and then, during the school hours, and in 
the presence of the children, to tell the master 
what they thought of him. The language 
was apt to be as strong as the temper was 
high, nor (if I was told the truth) did the 
women always keep their hands off the 
master—for there were rough specimens 
amongst them, more vigorous and direct 
than restrained in their methods. 

I had to deal with this difficulty, but 





Old Memories iii 

only once. About a week or ten days after 
I took charge of the school, a broad-chested 
and bare-armed lady came, to relieve herself 
of some of her less controllable convictions. 
I was not able to follow what she said in 
all its detail, for I was not as yet acquainted 
with the South Wales dialect ; but I 
recognized that her wrath had been kindled 
by one of the pupil-teachers. I stood and 
listened and waited without saying one word 
till she stopped. Then I asked the names 
of all her children, and called them to my 
desk, in the middle of the room, from the 
different parts of the school where their 
classes sat. There were four or five of them. 
When they were all gathered together around 
their mother I asked her to leave the room, 
take the children with her and not send them 
back until she received special permission. 
She was rather disconcerted by the novel 
method of the new teacher, and she seemed 
somewhat disappointed as she left the school 
with her little troop. My next step was 
to write a letter to the secretary of the school, 
and place my resignation in his hands, if 
the School Committee did not approve and 
support my action. This is the incident 






II2 


Old Memories 


to which I have alluded already in a previous 
chapter. I was supported much more strongly 
than I desired. The Committee not only 
permitted me to refuse applications for the 
re-admission of the children, but turned 
the father out of the works for many weeks ! 

The method proved effective. I experienced 
only one incident of a similar kind afterwards, 
and it had a very comical aspect. I had kept a 
little boy ''in'' at mid-day, for some slight 
mis-demeanour. He was wanted by his 
mother to carry his father's mid-day meal: 
so she came for him. I happened to be at my 
desk. She called her boy and he started 
coming. I just said '' Tom ! " to him, in a 
severe voice, and he went back. If he was 
not between the devil and the deep sea, 
he was in a situation that was analogous ; 
and his helplessness was so comical that I 
relented and '' Hannah Blaen Pal " triumphed. 
She was a well-known character amongst 
the miners' wives. 

So was Tom ! For, unless my memory 
deceives me, Tom was the only child of 
the four hundred and more under my care 
who had no ear for music. For the natural 
endowment of both parents and children was, 




Old Memories 


113 

in that respect, amazing. In the circum¬ 
stances, my own fondness for music was a 
real piece of good fortune ; and I indulged 
it to the full. Every few days I introduced 
a new school song. We '' practised'' it 
as a rule at the end of the first lesson in 
the morning, as the children changed places 
from the open floor to the desks and from 
the desks to the open floor. To hear the 
song a couple of times was quite enough for 
the majority—enough for the tune, but not 
for the words. We all alike cared far too 
little for the words. 

I do not believe that an advanced musician 

of the modern type would approve my method. 

There was little procedure according to 

rule '' either in '' voice discipline ” or aught 

else. It was not necessary, I thought, to 

make plans for training black-birds and 

thrushes ; and song was not more natural 

to the birds than to my children. They 

sang with fervour and enthusiasm and passion, 

watching keenly the series and signs I had 

invented, and in which I emphatically 

indulged as I stood on a chair in the middle 

of the long room. If it was not beyond 

their power to go wrong, as I once heard 

8 





114 


Old Memories 


Dr. Caird say of real genius, it was certainly 
far easier for them to go right. 

We had two school concerts while I was 
headmaster. They were held in the Indepen¬ 
dent chapel, which was the largest building 
in the village. The floor of it was occupied 
by the children, for I made no selection. 
Every boy and girl in the school—even Tom— 
belonged to the choir. The parents and 
big brothers and sisters sat in the galleries— 
a most enthusiastic audience, I need hardly 
say. In one of the two concerts the children 
performed the Cantata of the Birds, by Dr. 
Joseph Parry. The Eagle was sung by myself 
for it demanded a bass voice ; but the Wren, 
immediately after, was sung by a group of 
some seven or eight little boys and girls, 
none of them more than six years old; 
and Tom took my place and led them, making 
signs for piano, forte and so on, in comical 
imitation of my own ways. It was both 
funny and charming. 

In the other concert, miscellaneous songs 
were sung, and amongst them Handel’s 
Hallelujah Chorus. There rarely, if ever, was 
a more mad enterprise than that of teaching 
a whole school of children, boys, girls, and 





Old Memories 


115 

infants, the Hallelujah Chorus ; even although 
the miners took, of their own accord, to 
giving their help with the tenor and bass. 
The miners who had been working in night, 
or early morning shifts, used quietly to 
shove open the school-room door about 
3.30 in the afternoon, and group themselves 
standing around the door, and by and by, 
without a word from me, they would strike in. 

During the war, after an absence from 
Brynamman of more than forty years I 
visited the place. The warmth of the wel¬ 
come I received from men and women, 
now grandfathers and grandmothers,—for 
miners marry very young—^who had been 
children with me in school, touched me 
deeply; and the chairman, an old friend 
called D. W. Lewis, who was a professional 
musician, told the audience of an incident 
of the days long past which I had quite 
forgotten. The reader may remember that 
in the Hallelujah Chorus there are long- 
sustained notes. According to Mr. Lewis 
I found the little children's breath too short 
to hold out; so I divided them into two 
parties of whom the second was to come in 
gradually as the first was becoming exhausted. 




ii6 


Old Memories 


It is almost the only original contribution 
to music of which I can boast. 

I had happy charge of the school for 
about two years and when I left Brynamman 
evidence, of a kind which in some ways was 
unique, was given to me of the goodwill of 
the neighbourhood. Someone mentioned in 
one of the public-houses on a Saturday 
evening that I was leaving for college on 
the following Monday morning. During that 
interval, without a committee or organization 
of any kind, a testimonial of over £27 was 
collected for me: and there were friends 
at the train, who had not had an opportunity 
of contributing, begging my acceptance of 
their half-crowns! I lift off my hat in 
reverence and gratitude when I think of 
the working men and the working women of 
Brynamman. 

But I must go back a little in my narrative. 
One evening, when I was still happy in my 
work as schoolmaster, I walked to the 
church-meeting of the Calvinistic Methodists 
with an old stone-mason, called Daniel Evans. 
We were very close friends and I ventured to 
tell him under what I took to be a promise 
of strict secrecy, that someday I intended 






II7 


Old Memories 

giving up school teaching and becoming a 
minister. I finished my confession just as 
we entered the chapel. The opening service 
of praise, reading the Bible and prayer, was 
conducted as usual, and then Daniel Evans 
stood up in the big pew, and, to my astonish¬ 
ment, informed the church of the intention 
of which I had just told him. I was 
thoroughly puzzled as to what I ought to do. 
But a passage from Shakespeare’s Julius 
Caesar rose in my mind, '' There is a tide 
in the affairs of men, etc.” I resolved to 
let matters take their way. So word was 
sent from the church to the next meeting of 
the Presbytery, informing it that there was a 
young man who had expressed a desire to 
begin to preach, and requesting it to send a 
messenger to interview the young man in 
the presence of the church and take the voice 
of its members. 

The choice of the Presbytery fell upon 
the Revd. Thomas James of Llanelly. He 
had once been a puddler, but had worked his 
way into the University of Glasgow and taken 
its degree of M.A. A believer in the inter¬ 
mittent interest of the divine being in 
human affairs would take this incident as an 








ii8 


Old Memories 


example of the intervention of a '' Special 
Providence : those who believe that the 
interest is constant can omit the word 
special.” What signifies is that the choice 
of Mr. James was a most fortunate one for 
me. An answer I gave to his question, 
asked in presence of the church,—'' What is 
your motive in wishing to be a preacher ? ”— 
seemed greatly to please him. My reply 
was that I did not know. ''Sometimes, I 
think it just a desire for any kind of public 
attention, or notoriety; at other times I think 
it is a desire to do some good.” I could 
give no guarantee. He called the reply 
unusually frank and honest, took an interest 
in my well-being from that moment and, 
above all, told me of a Dr. Williams's Scholar¬ 
ship for which, after a time, I might compete 
and which, if I won it, would maintain me 
at the University of Glasgow. The scholar¬ 
ship, I may say, is open for competition 
about once a year to young men, living in 
England and Wales, intending to enter the 
nonconformist ministry of any Protestant 
church ; and its value used to be £40 a year 
for three years. The competition was held 
in London. 






Old Memories 


119 

It was the custom among the Calvinistic 
Methodists in those days for pulpit aspirants to 
begin preaching at once ; so that, almost 
from the time of Mr. James's visit, I wreaked 
my eloquence on such churches as invited me. 
And they were by no means slow to do so— 
least of all the small churches ; for it was 
the promises made to the small churches 
which were most apt to be broken, so as to 
leave the pulpit vacant, but for the young 
aspirants. I was naturally asked soon, and 
frequently, to preach in my own church, at 
Brynamman ; and on one occasion I invented 
and went through an ordeal, which I did not 
find it necessary to repeat. Having found 
that in preaching I was relying on my manu¬ 
script and taking to reading my sermon— 
a fatal defect in those times—I resolved 
to break myself of the habit. So, in the 
first place, I wrote out my sermon in a 
large book which it was impossible for me 
to conceal. Then I put the book down at 
my foot in the pulpit. Next, I began my 
sermon, and in a few minutes “ stuck 
dead." Then I stooped down for my MS, 
held it up, looked for the place whence I could 
start again, and put the book down again 




120 


Old Memories 


at my foot. To the amused sympathy of the 
audience this process was repeated several 
times ; and my best friend, Daniel James, a 
miner, called me a fool, for spoiling a good 
sermon by my nonsense. One trial of this piece 
of self-imposed discipline secured the desired 
end. I was never afterwards a '' reader ’' of my 
sermons : but I could preach with merciless 
eloquence from the shortest notes, or even 
from none at all. And I preached practically 
every Sunday in some one of the smaller 
churches of Carmarthenshire and Glam¬ 
organshire ; and, in particular, I was a kind 
of curate, or makeshift, for the Revd. William 
Prydderch, who was a very popular preacher 
and apt to promise more than he could 
perform. 

One natural, if not inevitable, result of this 
practice was that when I returned to Bryn- 
amman, at the earliest possible moment 
on Mondays, I was hardly fresh enough to 
face my work as headmaster. I lost interest 
in it, it began to bore me ; and I began to 
spill any merits I had as a master at a very 
fast rate. So, as soon as my second school 
inspection was over and the certificate was 
gained which relieved me of my obligations 




Old Memories 


I2I 


to the Normal College, I resigned the school. 
It was, I think, the month of May, 1875. 
My brother, John, had departed some time 
before. He got married, and accepted a 
place as head-gardener, near Market Drayton. 

I now devoted myself exclusively to my 
studies; and these studies were directed 
exclusively towards the examination for a 
Dr. Williams’s Scholarship, which was to be 
held in the following October, and for which 
I intended to compete. At first I enquired 
for some Grammar School, or Grammar 
School teacher who could take charge of an 
adult,” such as I was, and give me special 
help for my examination. All my enquiries 
were fruitless. However, the new minister 
of my own church, a Revd. Thomas Lloyd, 
had been for a session or so in the University 
of Glasgow : so I went and stayed in the 
farm-house where he also lodged and became 
his pupil. But the pupillage was most 
unreal. For a little time at first he listened 
to me repeating my Latin and Greek 
Declensions and Conjugations ”—which by 
the way he had himself forgotten—then, 
later on, when I began to read Greek, he 
helped me to find parts of the verb in the 






122 


Old Memories 


dictionary ; but his help finally dwindled into 
keeping the English translation of the Greek 
or Latin author in his hands while he listened 
to my rendering of it aloud. 

Once more, the passion for hard work and 
the feeling of a '' neck-or-nothing '' enter¬ 
prise possessed me. I was at my books at 
six every morning, and, except during meals 
and, at most, for some half hour in the 
afternoon, I was still at my books at midnight. 
The sequence of my studies was carefully 
considered, from the point of view of engaging 
“ different mental powers,'" or more simply 
and correctly, of varying the mental pro¬ 
cesses. After an hour of learning Greek or 
Latin grammar, I had an hour of algebra or 
geometry : and I learnt the history of Greece, 
and the history of Rome from text-books 
which I read in the open-air. For there was 
a moor behind the house, and I walked 
daily there for two hours in the morning, 
if the weather permitted, and I committed my 
histories to memory by repeating the accounts 
of the facts in a loud voice, so as to have 
the help of the ear. 

During these five months of very hard 
study I took one half-holiday ; and I preached 




Old Memories 


123 


practically every Sunday. The mathematics 
I had learnt at Bangor, under Mr. John 
Thomas, was almost sufficiently advanced 
and I was fond of it ; but in my classical 
studies I had to begin with the first elements. 
The few scraps of Latin grammar I had learnt 
had been forgotten, and I had to learn the 
Greek alphabet anew. Nevertheless, during 
those five months I read, and read some three 
times over on an average, the first book of 
the Iliad, the eighth book of Herodotus, a 
book of the Georgies and of the ^Lneid, 
Sallust’s Jugurthine War, a book of Livy, 
and a book of the Odes of Horace. I also 
tried to learn to write Latin Prose, and 
worked right through a text-book on that 
subject. But I had little guidance of any 
other kind : for Mr. Lloyd was helpless. 

Equipped with that most limited and 
hurriedly-acquired amount of classical learn¬ 
ing, I went up to the Dr. Williams’s Library 
in London, and sat the examination. There 
was one other competitor only, a Mr. Dry- 
burgh, who had competed for the scholarship 
the year before and already spent a session 
at the University of Glasgow. The result was 
announced in a very few days. Mr. Dryburgh 





124 Old Memories 

had done better than I had in classics 
and gained a few more marks ; but I had 
more than made up on the mathematical 
papers, and stood first. The trustees 
awarded a scholarship to each of us ; they 
were so well satisfied with the competition 
and the difference between us was so small. 

There was, however, one condition more 
which I had to fulfil: unless I passed the 
Preliminary Examination in Glasgow, so as 
to enter the senior classes in the Classics 
at once, I retained the scholarship for one 
year only. I had therefore to face another 
examination on arriving in Glasgow. I just 
managed to pass, partly no doubt because one 
piece of “ the unseen ” Greek happened to 
be taken from the first book of the Iliad, 
the only Greek book, save one, which I had 
ever read ! 

My course as an undergraduate thus began 
with the month of November, 1875, just 
before I reached my twenty-third birthday. 







Old Memories 


Chapter V 


^ I ^HE preliminary examination of which 
^ I spoke in the last chapter, the passing 
of which entitled me to become a member of 
the graduating classes in Greek and Latin, 
thoroughly exposed my lack of training and 
ignorance of the ancient classics. I could 
make but little, for instance, of the passage 
from Xenophon's Anabasis given in the 
Greek paper, and translation from English 
into Greek was altogether beyond the limits 
of my attainments. The Professor of Latin 
held a test examination soon after the class 
was formed. The results placed me in the 
Fourth Class, next to the few students 
regarded as hopeless. I was thus distinguished 
in two ways from the majority of my fellow- 
students. I was some five years older than 
the great majority of them, and my scholar¬ 
ship was poorer both in quality and quantity. 
There were a few students, however, who 
excelled me in both these respects : they 






126 


Old Memories 


were both older and more ignorant. These 
came, for the most part, from the Western 
Highlands, and were invariably making for 
the ministry,—of the Free Church as a rule. 
There being no compulsory entrance examina¬ 
tion, they could become members of the 
college classes simply by paying their fees ; 
and while occasionally a very bright and able 
student appeared amongst them, the great 
majority of them were hardly capable of 
being benefitted by the training which the 
university could offer. As a matter of fact, 
their becoming university students at all 
was regarded by them as an irksome secular 
interference, diverting them from and post¬ 
poning their more sacred duties ; for they 
were out to save souls. Hence, so far from 
seeking to widen their outlook and liberate 
their minds by their training, they kept their 
souls from first to last, securely locked, barred 
and bolted against all the influences of the 
university. Occasionally they were sources 
of great fun for their fellows—their renderings 
were so original and their answers to their 
professors were so unexpected. The fun was 
uproarious when Professor Ramsay, in his most 
hectoring manner, told a Highland student 



Old Memories 127 

who had not brought his Latin exercise that 
he must not let that occur again. Professor 
Ramsay had failed, while the students had 
succeeded, in catching the excuse offered by 
the culprit. It was that his wife had presented 
him with a little daughter during the night! 

If I happen not to mention the names of 
some of the professors of the University of 
Glasgow at that time, the reader will under¬ 
stand that their influence upon me was some¬ 
what evanescent. The Greek professor was 
Sir Richard Jebb, a pre-eminent scholar and 
a most vigorous teacher. It was his first 
session, and, probably in consequence of 
having been told that some of the classes 
were not always quiet, his discipline was, at 
that time, excessively minute and strict. 
But the class by no means failed to realize 
the beauty of his rendering of the Antigone 
in the afternoons, or to be inspired as well as 
guided by his scholarly example. He grew 
in favour with his students from year to year, 
and had he not been succeeded by Gilbert 
Murray the loss to the university would have 
been most grave. 

During this my first session I crept up in 
the Latin class from the neighbourhood of 





128 


Old Memories 


the dunces at the bottom, to that of the 
brighter spirits near the top. But Denney,* 
the best scholar of that year, seemed to 
belong to another sphere than the merely 
terrestrial one on which we dwelt. His 
scholarship was so ripe and full. In the 
Greek class I was awarded the eighth and last 
prize, which I quite deserved. But there 
were two or three other students who deserved 
it quite as much as I did. Immediately 
after the close of the classes the examina¬ 
tions for degrees were held. They were 
three in number—the classical, the mathema¬ 
tical and physical, and the philosophical 
and literary. The books prescribed for the 
examination in classics were, for the most 
part, different from those which we had read 
in the classes; and they were read and 
studied privately, side by side with the class 
work, by those students who thought they 
would not be in the running for class honours. 
Not being one of these I sat the degree 
examination, and had the pleasure of seeing 
my name honoured with a cross by the 
examiner. Professor William Wallace, of 

♦Afterwards Principal Denney, United Free Church 
College, Glasgow. 








Old Memories 


129 


Oxford. My papers seem to have been very 
satisfactory. My first contact with philo¬ 
sophy was an incident of the Latin viva voce ; 
for, with a few questions upon the meaning of 
a passage in one of the prescribed books, 
Professor Wallace had at once profoundly 
interested and helplessly entangled me. I 
never forgot my first meeting with that 
unpretentious great man. 

During this, my first session, which had 
thus ended happily, I had taken the gradua¬ 
ting class in pure mathematics, paying very 
little attention to its demands, which were 
by no means heavy. I needed all my time 
for the study of Greek and Latin ; and I 
now worked less passionately hard. Circum¬ 
stances would not have permitted it; for 
I shared a small back-room with another 
Williams's scholar, called William Bell. Small 
as it was, it was both our bed-room and study. 
We paid 4s. a week each for the room and 
attendance, and were cared for delightfully 
by Mrs. and Miss Work. Our weekly bill 
moved up and down between los. and 12s. 
a week. It was, even in those days, a 
small expenditure ; but, so far as I can 
remember, Mr. Bell and I were like the 

9 





130 


Old Memories 


disciples in the one thing that we '' lacked 
nothing/' 

I have little to say about the summer 
vacation, except for a short period at Bala 
College, reading Plato's Republic with 
Principal Lewis Edwards and idling. I lived 
at home with my father and mother who, by 
this time, had moved from the old home at 
Cwm into the village. I preached every 
Sunday, and was received everywhere with 
excessive kindness. Indeed, I was offered the 
pastorate of more than one church during that 
and the following summer ; but fortunately 
I had the sense to go on with my course at 
the imiversity. 

During my second session at College, namely 
1876-77, I took the classes of moral and 
natural philosophy ; and in doing so broke 
a regulation, of which I was ignorant, which 
prescribed that these classes should be taken 
after logic and English literature. My 
reason for taking my classes in an unusual 
order was that, by my method, I could sit 
my degree examination in mathematics and 
physics at the end of the second session, and 
thus!^avoid the necessity of sitting both in 
these subjects and in the philosophical 





Old Memories 


131 

subjects the same year. I exaggerated greatly 
the difficulty of attaining the degree standard. 

The graduating class in natural philosophy 
was nominally conducted by Lord Kelvin ; 
but he appeared less often than his assistant, 
Mr. Bottomley. It met every week-day 
except Saturday at 9 a.m., and our experience 
as students was decisively unique. When 
Kelvin was with us, we were being taught by 
the greatest physicist, and one of the worst 
teachers of his time. No one could predict 
his theme, nor his method of treating it. 
His lecture might be too far advanced for the 
best student in the class, or it might be the 
opposite. And Kelvin^ was so full of his 
subject as to find infinite suggestion in practi¬ 
cally any object that caught his eye. I 
remember for instance that he lectured for a 
whole hour on ‘‘ breaking glass —^he had 
seen a broken window on his way to the class¬ 
room ; and, as a matter of course, his exposi¬ 
tion of his subject led him to bring in the 
whole solar system. Lord Kelvin’s greatness 
as an investigator and inventor put his time 
deeply in his debt. 

His fellow-professor Edward Caird put his 
time in his debt through his students. He 





132 


Old Memories 


made bankrupts of them in the first place, 
so great was his power as a teacher, so hard 
did he toil for his classes, and so impressive 
and beautiful was his character. I have had 
the rare good fortune of sitting at the feet 
of more than one great teacher, amongst them, 
Robert Hughes, the elder of the little church 
in Llangemyw, Sir Richard Jebb, and John 
Nichol. But not even these could I rank with 
Caird, from any point of view. He was a very 
learned man in his subject; and the open¬ 
ness of his mind, the breadth of his outlook, 
the sincerity and depth of his comdctions, 
the impressiveness of his personahty, made 
him, I beheve, one of the greatest teachers 
of philosophy in modem times. His treat¬ 
ment of his subject was historical, but one 
never dreamt that he was dealing with dead 
systems of doctrine. We felt, rather, that 
we were being introduced into the presence of 
a world-old dialectic which never ceased. 
Under his guidance we could watch the 
refining of the world’s experience from age to 
age, and obser\’e its slow gamering and 
conquest of spiritual tmth. To be in his 
class was to me, as, indeed, it was to most 
students, an entirely new experience. The 





Old Memories 


133 


notion of “ order,” or ” discipline ” never 
occurred to any of us : they were things below 
the horizon, and any breach of them was 
beyond the bounds of possibility. We took 
notes of his lectures with all the speed we 
could command; and w^e treasured them. 
Notes of the lectures of one or tw^o other 
professors could be borrow’ed or bought, for 
they varied hardly at all from year to year. 
One of the professors is said to have rebuked 
a student for not taking notes, and to have 
received the excited and imw^elcome answ^er : 
” Please, sir, I have got my father's.” The 
story may not be true but it deserv’es to be. 

On one occasion only, so far as I ever heard, 
did a spirit of levity invade the moral philo¬ 
sophy class. It w’as when Caird lectured— 
and that for a full hour—on the relations of 
” Bowl and Sody,” w’hen he meant ” Sold and 
Body.” During that lecture he w^as seen, 
every now* and then, to lift his w^U-knowTi 
single eye-glass to his eye, and peer at the 
class in a puzzled fashion. 

I have taught university students, as 
Professor of Phdosophy, for more than thirty- 
five years, and I have had the hke good 
fortune : there has never been any need of 






134 


Old Memories 


Aft 


even thinking about order or discipline. But 
I doubt if any class I have ever taught could 
have stood the strain for a full hour of 
listening to me lecturing about the bowl'' 
and the sody.’' 

Edward Caird's power over his class was 
even more fully expressed in the depth and 
permanence of his influence, especially in 
the case of the best students. Old things 
passed away, never to return. There was 
never any direct negative criticism of the 
traditional beliefs which we had, like others, 
accepted without examination or criticism. 
We were led, rather, to assume a new attitude 
of mind ; and articles of our creed simply 
became obsolete. When I entered the moral 
philosophy class, the story of Jonah gave me 
no difficulty : and had Jonah been credited 
with swallowing the whale, I should have had 
no difficulty. And as to denying the story 
as it is told, on the biological ground that the 
throat of the whale is small and that he lives 
on small sea-creatures, I would have agreed 
with the reply of the Welsh preacher, who 
tossed the anatomical argument on one side 
with contempt, and said '' My brethren ! if 
the Lord wanted a whale with a big throat, 






Old Memories 


135 


he could have made a whale into which the 
Great Eastern could pass at one end and 
come out at the other end without striking 
a single sail/' The argument, even yet, seems 
to me flawless, provided the miraculous 
premises are admitted. Before the end of 
the session, miracles had lost their interest 
for me, and the legal and vindictive creed in 
which I had been nurtured had passed away, 
like a cloud. I wanted to shorten the creed 
so that it should consist of one article only : 
'' I believe in a God who is omnipotent love, 
and I dedicate myself to His service.” 

When the fact is recalled that those who 
enter the ministry of the Scottish Churches 
must take moral philosophy, as one of their 
subjects in the university, it becomes more 
easy to recognize than it is to measure the 
extent of Edward Caird's influence upon the 
ethical and religious beliefs of his time. But 
I must return to my personal story. 

Caird once a fortnight gave his class three 
or four subjects on each of which they were 
expected to write brief exercises—unless they 
wrote the optional essays prescribed once a 
month and involving much more advanced 
work. He waded through and made notes 





136 


Old Memories 


on one half of these class exercises every 
fortnight—an immense amount of trying 
work—and returned the other half un-read. 
Amongst the first set he read was my class 
exercise, and it happened to be one of the 
best sent in. I was called up to read one 
of the exercises in the '' second-hour '' meeting 
of the class. My success was wholly unex¬ 
pected by me, and I was intoxicated with 
joy. And, there and then, I resolved to 
write the '' Optional Essays,’' which meant 
competing with my fellow students for the 
Class Honours. My first essay, which was 
the first English essay I ever wrote, ranked 
third in the first class ; my second essay, if I 
remember rightly, stood higher; and before 
long it became evident that another student 
and myself were decisively ahead of the rest 
of the class. Recognizing this fact and 
seeing him one day in the Reading Room 
which was then attached to the University 
Library, I went up to him and proposed that, 
in order to make the race fair, we should 
exchange the books that bore upon the 
subject of the essay at half-time. Till that 
moment we had been strangers ; from that 
moment we were life-long friends. He 





Old Memories 


137 


accepted the proposal at once; and the 
competition bound us to each other even more 
closely. He was Mr. Hugh Walker of 
Kilbirnie.* At the close of the session the 
class would fain have divided the first prize 
between us, for the result of the year's work 
seemed to put us on a par ; but, it being a 
medal, that method was not practicable, and 
by the majority of the votes of his fellow- 
students the medal was awarded to Mr. 
Walker. I almost think that Mr. Walker 
would have preferred a different result. At 
any rate, as we walked together up to the 
college on the morning of the vote we settled 
the matter between ourselves by each of us 
expressing his conviction of the other's 
superior claims. There never was more hon¬ 
ourable or more friendly rivalry for what we 
deemed a great honour, and many unexpected 
consequences followed it. 

I passed the second part of the examination 
for the degree of M.A., namely the mathema¬ 
tical and physical, at the close of this session. 
There remained for the third and last session, 
the classes of logic and of English literature. 

* Now Professor of English Literature, St. David’s 
College, Lampeter. 






Old Memories 


Inasmuch as I had attended the moral 
philosophy class already, under the guidance 
of Caird and also under his inspiring influence, 
while to all the other members of the logic 
class every branch of philosophy was strange 
and new, I expected that my pre-eminence 
would be obvious and convincing. It was 
not. The result of each of the three essays 
prescribed found me second to some person— 
a different person, by the by, each time. 
On my way up to college on the last day of 
the session, one of my fellow students told 
me that the class had resolved to award the 
class medal to me. (He was an Australian, I 
remember, and called Robert Hay.) Remon¬ 
strance was useless. The voting began as 
soon as the opening prayer was over ; and 
it soon became evident that what Mr Hay 
told me was true But I stood up in my 
place and said to the professor, “ Judging 
by the results given by you, sir, I do not 
deserve the medal, and I cannot accept it 
even if the majority of votes are for me.” 
The professor acquiesced; and the same 
process was repeated over the second prize. 
When the students were voting me the third 
prize, the professor himself interfered, and. 






Old Memories 


139 


not without anger, he refused the prize on 
my behalf. But I said that it accorded with 
his view of the value of my work, and that 
I would accept the prize if my fellow-students 
awarded it to me by their votes. They did 
so with cordial unanimity. 

Apart from this incident I have no very 
living memories of the logic class. But no 
student can quite forget the length and 
unction of the opening prayer, the heat of 
the professor’s wrath against Hegel and '' his 
meaningless jargon,” and the reading of the 
ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. Except for that 
ballad, 

“The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

The solemn temples ” 

of the rhetoric which had its place in the 
class side by side with logic and psycholog}^ 
have faded, leaving ‘'not a rack behind.” 

It was far otherwise with the English 
literature class as taught by John Nichol. 
Once more I listened to a very great teacher, 
and became for the first time one of the heirs 
to a very great inheritance. Nichol revealed 
to me, and to others, the vast riches of our 
literature and made us ever afterwards lovers 
of it. There met in him qualities rarely 







140 Old Memories 

found together but calculated to fit him for 
his work in a supreme way. In the first 
place, I believe he was the best public reader 
of both poetry and prose that I ever heard. 
In the next place he was most catholic in his 
tastes : recognized the literary value both 
of form and matter : every kind of literary 
excellence appealed to him, and he aired no 
aesthetic prejudices and obstinacies. More¬ 
over his eloquence in class was at times 
'' sweeping in its power, for he threw 
himself unrestrainedly into his lectures, and, 
to crown all, I believe he was the most chival¬ 
rous man I have ever met. Misery always 
found in him, whether deserved or not, a 
fiery defence, as well as pity and help. 

While still a student in his class I was more 
than once a guest at his table. I met 
Swinburne there once and watched him 
rolling in his chair as he recited one of his 
poems to us. Even yet I can hear Mrs. Nichol, 
whose soul was the very spirit of peace, 
restrain her husband’s extravagances with 
the gentlest '' John ! John ! ” ; and I can 
see him yield at once. It was a delightful 
home to know. 

John Nichol and Edward Caird differed 











Old Memories 


141 


from one another in every way; but they 
were, ever since the days of the “ Old 
Mortality Club in Oxford, very intimate 
friends. One or two incidents illustrate at 
once the character of both of them, and will 
be my excuse for citing them. The first 
was told me by Edward Caird. 

Lushington after his retirement as professor 
was made Lord Rector, and, as a very old 
man, was delivering his Rectorial Address 
in the Bute Hall. The students in the 
galleries could not hear him, and after a little 
while they occupied themselves otherwise 
than by trying to hear him. Nichol and 
Caird were standing together as keepers of 
order ; and Nichol succeeded after several 
attempts in breaking away from Caird to take 
his place amongst a specially noisy group of 
students who were shooting peas at the 
audience. '' Nichol went to look after the 
students,'' said Caird, '' and I went to look 
after him." The students stopped shooting 
the peas; but one of them, provokingly 
mischievous, munched the peas off his palm. 
'' Look at that insolent fellow," says Nichol 
to Caird. '' He does that just to annoy 
us." '' Never mind him," was the most 






Old Memories 


142 

characteristic reply,'' you can’t interfere with 
his eating his own peas ! ” But Nichol broke 

away again and said to the student, '' Sir ! 
you should have brought thistles ! ” There 
was a roar of laughter which arrested the 
attention of the whole audience. 

The other incident brings to light an aspect 
of Caird’s character not always recognized 
by those who thought they knew him. He 
was very much more shrewd and observant 
of the character of the men and women he 
met than was usually thought. In other 
words he was less entirely up in the clouds. 
On this occasion I met Mr. Caird in Hillhead 
Street, and he turned me round to walk 
with him. I am going to see Nichol,” he 
said, and to quarrel with him.” '' Surely,” 
I replied, '' that is a very strange errand for 
you ”—for I saw he was in earnest. ''It is 
the only way,” said Caird. " For a long time 
Nichol has been most difficult both to me 
and my brother ”—the Principal. " I shall 
provoke Nichol,” he continued, '' and in his 
anger he will say such extraordinary things 
that he will be charming for many months.” 
I remember on one occasion saying to Mr. 
Caird, " How can you put up with so many 




Old Memories 


143 


interruptions ? ‘'I leave a margin for 

them/’ was his wise and patient answer. 
And there were many other things for 
which he left a margin, amongst them the 
tempestuous extravagances of his great 
friend, John Nichol. 

Soon after the close of the session I received 
a letter from Professor Nichol which had a 
decisive influence on my career. In that 
letter he told me that if I did not hurry into 
professional life, something might come of me. 

I had undertaken the pastoral care of a 
Calvinistic Methodist chapel at Dolwyddelen, 
near Llanrwst; and it is just possible that 
Professor Nichol had heard that I was entering 
the sacred profession. His letter precipitated 
a notion I had been playing with into a sudden 
resolve. I gave up the chapel, and went to 
Bonn on the Rhine with my friend Hugh 
Walker, in order that we might continue our 
studies in philosophy and sit for honours 
in the following autumn. On our way to 
Germany we went to Wales, and, as a matter 
of course, I visited the great friend of my 
youth, Mrs. Roxburgh, now living in Bettws- 
y-Coed, and took Walker with me. Miss 
Roxburgh was there, a young lady a few 







144 Old 'Memories 

years younger than Walker ; and she made 
the evening most pleasant for us. Walker 
fell in love with her there and then, and 
irremediably. It was the only obvious case 
of boundless love at first sight ” that I had 
ever witnessed. Although he was endowed 
with all the self-contained taciturnity of a 
Scotsman, not many days passed before he 
had made me his confession—of which, in 
fact, there was no need, for there were other 
evidences in plenty. One of the results was 
that I found myself committed to the most 
impossible task I ever faced. We were in 
Germany by this time: and I tried to teach 
Walker the first few notes of the song of 
Burns :— 

“ Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw 
I dearly like the West,” etc. 

In all respects save one there was infinite 

variety in Walker's rendering of the song as 
he walked along the banks of the Rhine : 
somehow every note was out of tune. 

Walker and I had a very happy and 
industrious summer in Bonn. We stayed with 
an old ivory-carver, in Struve Strasse, who 
had two fair daughters in the little shop he 
kept, and to whom he owed most of his trade 
with the university students. 







Old Memories 145 

With the help of these two young women 
Walker and I managed to witness a series 
of sword-fights between the students of the 
university. These were fought on that 
occasion in a kind of out-house, some two 
miles from the city ; and an uncommonly 
silly and objectionable performance we 
thought it was. Five duels were fought that 
afternoon, and one man was seriously 
wounded. 

On another occasion Walker and I had a 
most pleasant excursion on horseback up the 
Rhine; and on still another we held a feast 
in the Club of which we had been made 
temporary members, where the wines were 
very good and very cheap. When the hour 
became late, Walker and I might be heard 
alternately praising our respective mothers, 
and when the Club was closing we had a 
memorable walk together in the moonlight 
and amongst the fire-flies, along the left bank 
of the Rhine. The feast was intended to 
celebrate our finishing of the reading of Caird's 
Philosophy of Kant, and was to have been 
the first of a series. It remained the only one. 

At the close of the summer Walker, who 
was well off, tempted me to spend my last 

10 






146 


Old Memories 


penny on a Swiss tour. I thought the chance 
was not likely to come again in the way of a 
Methodist preacher and I went. We sailed 
together up the Rhine, then went to Basle, 
and Lucerne, and over the St. Gothard to the 
Italian side. We descended to Airolo most 
expeditiously, for we sat on the green turf 
of the mountain side and slid down, amongst 
the grasshoppers, with great enjoyment. But 
we discovered afterwards that we had put 
our trousers to uses for which they were not 
intended. The last sight I saw for some 
nights after that adventure was Walker 
sewing deftly with his left hand, trying to 
repair and fortify himself behind. Having 
returned over the St. Gothard, we crossed 
the Furka Pass, saw the source of the Rhone 
and followed its course, walked up the glen 
to Zermatt, and down again during a wonder¬ 
ful thunder-storm. Then we went to 
Chamonix for a few days and took some of 
the well-known climbs, but not Mont Blanc 
itself. Thence we returned by Geneva, 
Lausanne, and Berne, and down the Rhine. 

I arrived home penniless, having spent the 
last of the savings I had made while a school¬ 
master. Then, I borrowed two pounds from 





Old Memories 


147 


Mrs. Roxburgh, to pay my fare to Glasgow 
and maintain myself pending the arrival of 
the instalment of Dr. Williams’s scholarship, 
which the trustees, being pleased with my 
undergraduate course, had extended for a 
fourth year. 

There was an interval of a few weeks before 
the degree examinations began, and this I 
spent in severe study. In the meantime the 
City of Glasgow Bank had come down, and 
Walker, with his mother and one of his 
sisters, was a share-holder. 

This event brought so much confusion and 
so many responsibilities upon Walker—for his 
father was dead and he was the eldest son— 
that all thoughts of the examination so far 
as it concerned him were put on one side. 
Meantime I '' coached ” with Mr. Patrick, 
Professor Veitch’s assistant, who was already 
directing the studies of Thomas Kilpatrick and 
James Lambie. 

The examination for the George A. Clark 
Fellowship in philosophy (which was awarded 
once every four years and was open to 
competition by graduates of four years’ 
standing) took place in that autumn of 1878 ; 
and opinion was divided as to whether it 








Old Memories 


148 

would fall to Lambie or Kilpatrick. They 
were both senior as students by some years 
to me, and the best men of their time in 
their subject. The examination for the 
fellowship was the same as for honours : but 
I did not intend to compete for it. There 
were two other scholarships open and I had 
put in my name for each of these. But I 
called on Edward Caird, and having learnt 
that I had not put in my name for the Clark, 
he told me to do so—adding however,'' I do 
not say that you have any chance of winning 
it; but putting in your name will cost you 
nothing; and one never knows.” So I put 
in my name, and was thoroughly ashamed 
of having done so, as against Lambie and 
Kilpatrick. 

One Sunday forenoon, Mungo MacCallum, 
then assisting Professor Nichol, afterwards 
a most admirable professor of English 
literature in Wales, and in Sydney, New South 
Wales, called on me in my lodgings at 
Willowbank Street, and took me to hear 
Lambie preaching in a neighbouring church. 
After the sermon, Lambie and MacCallum 
came back with me, and in the course of that 
afternoon (on whose suggestion I cannot now 






149 


Old Memories 

say) we resolved to found a philosophical 
society. This society was called The 
Witenagemote at the suggestion of MacCallum, 
whose humour was never asleep ; and it had 
for many years a great influence on the study 
of philosophy in Glasgow. I was its first 
secretary. Its first meeting—the meeting, in 
fact, in which it was regularly founded, took 
place in a little public-house in Park Road, 
Hillhead, unless my memory deceives me. 
For at that time there was no Student's 
Union, nor any place within or connected 
with the university where students could 
meet for social purposes. The meeting took 
place between the examination for honours 
and scholarships in philosophy and the 
declaration of the results. Once business 
was over we indulged in university gossip; 
and, as a matter of course, the question was 
raised whether Lambie or Kilpatrick would 
be the winner of the “ George A. Clark." 
Lambie insisted that it would be Kilpatrick, 
and Kilpatrick that it would be Lambie : but 
neither of them on being challenged to sell 
his chance would do so. Suddenly, in his 
thin, piping voice, MacCallum said to me, 
Jones ! what will you sell your chance 







150 


Old Memories 


for ? I replied without a moment's hesita¬ 
tion '' Tuppence ! " and the two pence were 
paid there and then. 

Some days afterwards I called on Lambie. 
I had an overwhelming desire to withdraw 
my name from the honours examination, 
which it was possible for me to do so long as 
the results were not declared. I was certain 
I had only got a Second Class. No Welshman 
had ever got a First, and I set no value on 
anything less than a First. Lambie did his 
best to dissuade me. It was in vain, however: 
I went to withdraw my name. But on going 
up to the notice board I found that the results 
were already out ! I had been given a First, 
and my cap went about as high as the college 
tower. I had no more care. I knew I had 
no chance for the Clark : I also knew that 
I would have another scholarship, for I was 
the only candidate for it. 

Some days afterwards I was celebrating 
my success in gaining a First Class by having 
a fresh herring with my tea, when I received 
a message from Robert MacLehose asking 
me to go up to college and see who had won 
the Clark. He understood that the results 
were to be out that day. I went, and on 





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Old Memories 


151 

my way up was congratulated on having won 
it myself; I got very angry, and told my 
informant that he had no right to make fun 
of me. He himself then huffed '' also, and 
went his way. Then I ran a few steps, 
hoping ; next I turned back, disbelieving ; 
but finally I found myself in front of the 
board reading the announcement that the 
examiners had unanimously awarded the 
scholarship to me. It was the blue ribbon 
of the University,'' said Mrs. Caird on con¬ 
gratulating me ; and what was even more 
to the purpose it was at that time worth 
£225 a year for four years : a fortune for me. 
I do not believe in the least that I ought to 
have beaten either Lambie or Kilpatrick: 
they knew more than I did and had a firmer 
grasp. All the same I believe I did it; for 
I was better than myself in every examination. 

The hard work, the excitement, the absence 
of the immediate need of any further strain— 
all these things combined, brought collapse. 
I needed rest, and I needed to be cared for ; 
and I did not know it. 

About this time, I visited Walker's charm¬ 
ing home for the first time. There I found 
his noble old mother, and his three unmatched 




152 


Old Memories 


sisters and youngest brother. But it was 
not long before one of them was matched, for 
I proposed to the eldest of the three—a share¬ 
holder in the bank—and I was accepted as 
a suitor, though the prospects of marriage 
were very distant. They did not come till 
April of 1882 ; and most persons would even 
then have doubted their arrival. But I 
persuaded my sweetheart that if I could not 
be a professor, I could be a minister ; if I 
could not be a minister, I could be an elemen¬ 
tary teacher, for I held the certificate ; and 
if I could not get a school, I could make shoes. 
It seemed to us, in our optimistic mood, that 
I had more than the average strings to my 
bow. 

But I must turn back to the winter of 
1878-79. It was rather a barren winter, and 
I remember little about it. So, indeed, were 
all the four years during which I was Clark 
Scholar. I gave some assistance with the 
class examinations and essays to Edward 
Caird ; I read some philosophy ; I attended 
the meetings of the Witenagemote ; I joined 
first the Free Church College and then the 
Established Church College as a divinity 
student and was as idle there as any of my 








Old Memories 


153 


fellows ; and I formed some lasting friend¬ 
ships. Amongst the best of my friends were 
Professor Bruce and Dr. Marcus Dods who 
stood at my back on every occasion, and 
pardoned all my blatant heterodoxes. I also 
came to know Henry Drummond very well, 
and feel, as everyone did, the unrivalled 
charm of his character. He first taught me 
to observe the quiet colours in a natural 
scene, such as the colour of the soil of a 
ploughed field—where I had never thought of 
looking for beauty. But my closest friends 
were the Misses McArthur, who, in fact, 
mothered me. Miss Jane McArthur, I may 
say in passing, started and conducted for 
several years a series of correspondence 
classes for women. I was one of her tutors, 
Scotland knew no wiser or better friend to 
Women's Higher Education, then in its 
infancy, than Miss Jane was. 

I cannot say how far my experience in 
Glasgow as a student was the same as that of 
others. But there was one feature in it 
which I still prize most highly and recall with 
gratitude and admiration. There could 
hardly be a youth in the university whose 
claims on the Glasgow citizen were lower than 








154 


Old Memories 


mine. I had no relatives there, but was a 
complete stranger and a Welshman: I had no 
social position, but was on the contrary quite 
poor. I never possessed a night-shirt ! nor 
did I know that I ought to possess one. Far 
less had I an evening suit of swallow-tails. 
But this did not prevent Mr. Mirrlees, the 
head of a great firm of engineers, nor Mr. 
MacLehose, the university bookseller and 
publisher, from having me as their guest. 
On these occasions my fellow-lodger, Mr. 
McIntosh, whose brother-in-law I afterwards 
became, lent me his evening togs, and all 
went well. I should like to think that the 
Glasgow citizens who are well-to-do still take 
interest in some of the students of the 
university, who have no claims upon 
them, except their loneliness. I should 
deplore Glasgow’s loss of its old generosities. 

Walker and I went to Germany once more, 
and spent the summer of 1879 Dresden. 
On this occasion Walker’s younger brother, 
James, accompanied him and we also had 
with us James Denney, the best classical 
scholar of his time in the University of 
Glasgow, and afterwards the great Free Church 
leader. With Denney’s guidance we renewed 





Old Memories 


155 

our studies of Greek and Latin and read 
Homer and Thucydides and Tacitus with 
very great enjoyment. Some of the after¬ 
noons we spent in the Art Gallery, but most 
of them in the Royal Garden then belonging 
to the city. And the four of us played the 
game of marbles in a secluded spot which we 
had discovered, until the German police came 
upon us and refused to let us play any more 
except in the children’s spiel-platz, amongst 
the perambulators. Then we shifted our 
playground to the neighbourhood of the grave 
of Moreau, one of Napoleon’s generals, some 
two miles out of the city. One way or 
another we had a profitable and happy time 
together in Dresden ; and the friendship I 
then formed with Denney never grew old, 
nor was it in the least disturbed by any 
differences of view or outlook, whether theolo¬ 
gical or social, although the former were 
quite sufficiently decisive. 

In the autumn of the same year. Walker 
and I went to Oxford : we intended to take 
a complete course of study and to graduate 
there, an intention which Walker fulfilled 
by taking his degree with a strong First in 
Greats. I passed the Preliminary and the 



Old Memories 


156 

Balliol Entrance examinations, and went no 
further. Three years as an undergraduate 
were more than I could face : I was nearly 
twenty-seven years of age, and the study of 
philosophy, which had won my soul, made it 
difficult for me to go back to conjugations 
and declensions and the minutiae of scholar¬ 
ship which were unwisely made my exclusive 
diet. Instead of entering Balliol College I 
withdrew, and resolved to remain in Glasgow 
under the tutelage of Edward Caird and 
assisting him as Clark Scholar. I have no 
doubt that the decision was right. Whatever 
Oxford could have offered to me, to remain 
there as a student at that time would have 
done me more harm than good. 

The years that followed, till the expiry of 
my scholarship in 1882, gave me opportuni¬ 
ties for a fuller and more intimate knowledge 
of Edward Caird There was hardly a week 
in which I might not be found in his study : 
and, even afterwards, when I was professor 
in Wales or in St. Andrews, or in Glasgow, 
there was, I believe, not one summer vacation 
a part of which we did not spend together. 
Either I went to him in the Lake District, 
or he and Mrs. Caird took a house near us in 



Old Memories 


157 

Wales, or stayed with us in Aviemore and 
Grenoble. 

Perhaps the closeness and permanence of 
our friendly intercourse may justify me, 
before parting from him, to add to what I 
have already said of this great and good man 
—for he was certainly of a larger moral 
stature than any other man I have ever 
known. But these weightier and graver 
qualities were at once discernible to every 
one ; and I have written of him elsewhere 
from this point of view.* Some of his other 
and lighter qualities, not so well known, may 
interest the reader. One of the most striking 
of these was his power to abstract himself from 
any person or object that was not in some 
way or another pleasing or profitable. 

How can you listen to such trashy sermons 
with patience ? I once said to him. “ I 
don’t listen to them,” was his reply, beyond 
a few sentences at the beginning, to find what 
the preacher would be at. After that, if I 
do not like his line of thought, I do not hear 
him at all.” The continued litigation over 


♦See Life and Philosophy of Edward Caird, by 
Professor Muirhead and Sir Henry Jones. 











158 


Old Memories 


the publication of his class lectures by one of 
his students was naturally troubling and 
occupying his mind, especially when, as was 
then the case, it was before the House of 
Lords for final decision. But one afternoon, 
as we were starting for a walk in Wales, he 
said to me,I am not going to think of that 
matter any more.’' I believe he literally 
kept his resolve. The case practically ceased 
to exist for him from that moment. 

Another of his characteristics was his 
absent-mindedness. At times, especially 
when he was engaged upon his great work on 
Kant, he was apt to be quite oblivious of his 
surroundings. One day in Wales he left 
Mrs. Caird and myself on our walk in order 
to pay the formal parting visit to the local 
doctor. Mrs. Caird and I loitered long on the 
road, waiting for him ; then she sent me to 
look for him. I found him sitting quite 
placidly in the surgery amongst the patients, 
chiefly babies on their mothers’ arms. Another 
instance of absent-mindedness he related 
to me himself and I have always thought 
it very comical. '' I found myself,” he 
said, ” standing outside my bath, wonder¬ 
ing whether I was coming out or 




Old Memories 


159 

going in ! And this was on a Glasgow 
winter morning ! 

I might multiply instances. '' Oh, Mr. 
Caird,'' said the servant maid to him one day 
as he opened the front door of his house, 

you cannot go out like that ! He looked 
at the maid and she continued, ‘‘ Look at 
your trousers, sir ! He had been writing 
all the morning and a puppy dog had been 
playing about his feet; and it had chewed 
one leg of Mr. Caird’s trousers up to the knee, 
without distracting his attention in the least. 

A more charming guest I have never 
known. He would sit reading placidly for 
hours in the windy porch of the farm-house 
at Aviemore, while the children ran in and 
out, about his knees. But he was most 
helpless amongst them ; and their mother 
trembled with fear when he tried to play 
with them. He was not able to join in their 
games at all or be one of them—except in 
simplicity—^nor could he answer their 
questions in their way. When my little 
daughter, Jeanie, sitting on his knee, pulled 
his whiskers and asked him '' why his hair 
grew there instead of on the top of his head,” 
he had not a word to say. One of his last 




i6o Old Memories 

visits to us was his visit to the old villa I had 
rented for the summer on one of the slopes 
about Grenoble. He was working at the 
time at his second series of Gifford Lectures, 
and I can even yet see him sitting peaceably, 
sheltering from the heat in our vine tonnelle, 
writing diligently all through the morning. 
That visit closed with a memorable drive 
over the Lautaret Pass, to the Italian side, 
through the noblest Swiss scenery. 

So long as I was in Glasgow as Clark 
Scholar, our relation to one another was as 
much that of father and son as of teacher 
and disciple. He virtually reproved me once. 
It is true that his reproof took the form of 
advice, but it was advice that I knew I 
needed. '' Jones,” he said, “ always keep 
your engagements.” Gentle as were his 
words, they were far too impressive to be 
forgotten; for his character was behind 
them. Engagements, whether great or small, 
acquired a new sacredness to me from that 
moment. 

There was, however, one momentous engage¬ 
ment from which I sought release owing 
to his intervention. What is this you have 
been doing, Jones ? ” he said to me one 








I'holo by] 


LADY JONES. 


[John Wickens. 


Old Memories i6i 

evening, as he stood with his tall figure above 
the low chair when I sat in his study. I did 
not know what he meant, and was put about 
by his solemnity: so he continued. '' I 
hear that you have taken a church in 
Liverpool. Why! I intend you to be a 
professor of philosophy.” '' Do you, Mr. 
Caird ? ” I replied, jumping up in the joy of 
my heart; for somehow I had never dared 
to contemplate such a destiny. Not for a 
moment did I hesitate, or count the cost or 
probabilities of the new venture : the very 
first post carried to the officials of the church 
my resignation of the pastorate. 

I had told Caird of my engagement to 
Miss Walker, and he was naturally desirous 
of meeting her. He happened to be ill and 
in his bed-room when I introduced them to 
each other, and very few words were said 
on either side. But there was one more 
instance of his saying what could not be 
forgotten : ''I look upon you two as my 
children.” 

And so he did. My wife became first 
favourite with him '' at first leap.” 

We were married on the nth of April, 1882. 
My scholarship expired that year, and I had 





i 62 


Old Memories 


no other income. But, as I have already 
explained, I had a rich variety of prospects ; 
and to young optimists, prospects can be 
helpful as well as luring, reliable as well as 
treacherous. Prudence, the prudence that 
will never leap, has always seemed to me the 
most ambiguous of all the virtues. In any 
case what with m}^ prospects and somewhat 
sparse savings we honeymooned in the Lake 
District, where, according to our Cockney 
landlord, '‘the hair was very hembracin'! 
Thence we went to Wales, and stayed for the 
summer at Llangernyw, near my father and 
mother. When autumn came we returned 
to Scotland and rented a cottage at Cambus- 
lang ; for Mr. Caird had invented an Assist- 
antship for me, paying me, I need hardly say, 
out of his own pocket. 

But before we had furnished the cottage, 
or I had begun my work as Assistant to 
Caird, the world opened for us in a quite 
unexpected quarter. I was offered the 
Lectureship in Philosophy at the University 
College of Wales, Aberystwyth, at a salary, 
if I remember rightly, of £150 a year : and 
my services were to begin with the New 
Year. 






Old Memories 


163 

We left Scotland; and it was not for 
nearly nine years that we returned there and 
I experienced anew the never-failing kindness 
of its people. 







.1 

i 


I 


\ 











Old Memories 


Chapter VI 


^ I ^HE weather in Scotland about Christmas, 
^ 1882, was merciless: my wife was 

frozen out of her kitchen in Cambuslang. 
We found it sunny and kindly at Aber¬ 
ystwyth,—a place softened by the sea-air 
and, I believe, by the gulf-stream. A few 
days after our arrival my wife and I took 
a walk out into the country, and we found 
the red campion in full bloom in a wood. 
We adopted it on the spot as our family 
flower, and made it the symbol of our hopes. 
Since that time we have plucked it for one 
another more than once, when we were 
hard tried. 

A more cheerful beginning of a new life 
could hardly be desired. I had arrived: 
for I had secured the two things which accord¬ 
ing to Hegel make life worth living : namely, 
the wife and the work which I loved. We 
took a house in Bryn-y-mor Road, within 
a few doors of my friend, Mungo MacCallum, 

165 






i 66 


Old Memories 


then professor of English in the college. 
No outlook could be more auspicious. My 
class was small; but it was preparing for 
graduation in the University of London 
and one of its members was Mr., afterwards 
Sir Owen M. Edwards, a distinguished fellow 
of Lincoln College, Oxford and Chief Inspector 
of Schools for Wales. Besides this class I gave 
once a week a popular lecture on philosophy, 
which was very well attended, and appreciated 
in a way that was most encouraging to me. 

But the halcyon weather did not last long. 
At the close of that term, my first, I found 
the post which I held advertised and can¬ 
didates invited to apply for it; which meant, 
of course, that the college was dispensing 
finally with my services. I must explain 
the circumstances : but I do not propose 
to enter into any details. Instead, I shall 
put down the few facts necessary to make the 
situation intelligible, and ask the reader 
to draw any conclusions he pleases. It 
does not matter to me, and it does not 
matter to the dead. 

I. There were at this time thirteen 
different towns competing for the university 
college to be founded somewhere in North 




Old Memories 


167 


Wales and aided by a Government grant 
of £/[,ooo a year, conditional, however, upon 
local subscriptions. 

2. Mainly by the efforts of William 
Rathbone, M.P. for North Carnarvonshire, 
a meeting was held at Chester, a committee 
was formed consisting of representatives of 
North Wales in either of the two houses of 
parliament and a resolution was passed in 
which the question of site was postponed 
to that of the subscriptions, a movement 
to obtain which was then and there inaugu¬ 
rated. 

3. I was asked by the unanimous com¬ 
mittee to be the secretary in charge of that 
movement; and, for that purpose, to obtain 
the permission of the Principal of my college 
to be absent for some six weeks, including 
the Easter holidays; while Mr. Rathbone 
undertook to pay handsomely for a sub¬ 
stitute,'' lest my students should suffer by 
my absence. 

4. The Principal, on my making the 
request, placed before me the following option. 
If I accepted the invitation to be the 
secretary of the North Wales movement, 
I ceased thereby to be a member of the 




i68 Old Memories 

college staff. In other words, I was dis¬ 
missed. On the other hand, if I refused 
the invitation of Mr. Rathbone and the 
committee, my lectureship would be at once 
converted into a professorship, on the usual 
terms of tenure. I tried hard to shew that 
such an option need not be forced upon me. 
I believed that the Aberystwyth college 
would be moved into North Wales and gain 
by the movement. But my efforts, earnest 
as they were, failed altogether. 

5. Bidden to approach the Principal for 
a second time, I was given the same option 
between what I thought my duty to my 
country and my means of making a liveli¬ 
hood. But, before that interview was over, 
a complete change came over the Principal’s 
view. He gave me permission to accept the 
secretaryship, relieved Mr. Rathbone from 
the need of providing a substitute and under¬ 
took to do what was necessary himself. 
I had told him that I would let my country¬ 
men know the option he had placed before 
me and all the circumstances. 

6. My appointment as secretary was 
announced at once. Lord Aberdare, the 
president of the college, saw the announcement 






169 


Old Memories 

and cancelled the Principars permission, 
on the ground that looked quite reasonable, 
namely, that the establishment of the North 
Wales college would be the death-blow 
of the college at Aberystwyth and that 
it was not “decent"’ that the death-blow 
should be delivered by a member of the staff. 

7. The Parliamentary Committee gave 
way to Lord Aberdare and I took no part 
whatsoever in the movement for the North 
Wales college. Nevertheless, soon after the 
end of the term, I found that my post as 
lecturer at Aberystwyth was being advertised. 

8. I desire it to be understood clearly 
that I never resigned. And the authorities 
of the college, instead of converting my 
lectureship into a chair, turned me off. It 
was from the public advertisement that 
I first learnt of my dismissal. 

I was thus left, newly-married, without 
any visible means of earning a livelihood. 
But my wife and I were young, and cares 
did not hite. I cannot recall a single moment 
of monetary anxiety on the part of either 
of us. What I can recall is the drop in the 
temperature of the kindliness of my Aber¬ 
ystwyth neighbours—not that the closer 







170 


Old Memories 


friendships were in any way affected. I 
seemed then for the first time to find meaning 
in the Biblical phrases about a pelican 
in the wilderness” and ”a sparrow alone 
upon the house top,” Psalm 102, 6, 7. 
Suspicions of my orthodoxy also spread 
like a contagion : and since those days I 
have often marvelled that I was not crushed. 
It is so easy for a person whom the public 
reveres to crush a young life at the beginning 
of its career. But ” let the dead bury their 
dead.” 

Although I had no college duties, I had a 
busy summer ; for Mr. Rathbone requested 
me to draw up the constitution of the new 
college, which was to be established at 
Bangor. This occupied me closely and 
privately for many weeks ; and Mr. Rathbone 
gave me £<^0 for my work. The constitution, 
I may now say, was supposed to have been 
sketched by an episcopalian and was violently 
attacked for want of a satisfactory balance 
of sects, by the Liberal and nonconformist 
press. It is hardly necessary to say that 
I had tried a task in which no one has ever 
succeeded in Wales ; namely that of ” being 
fair ” as between the religious (?) sects. 




Old Memories 


vji 

The same summer found me appointed 
Examiner for Degrees in the University of 
Glasgow in the department of philosophy 
and English literature. The appointment 
lasted for three years, and carried a salary, 
I think, of £8o a year. 

I was presiding, as invigilator, over the 
examination for degrees held at the close of 
the session when Edward Caird came up on 
the platform behind the students, where 
I sat, and placed a small book in my hand, 
asking me to look at it before he returned. 
It was called Aids to Philosophy, and, when 
Caird came back, I had no hesitation in saying 
to him that it consisted of garbled and 
unintelligent renderings of his own lectures. 
Asked if I would permit it to be published 
and sold, I answered with an emphatic 
'' No.’' The students of the future would 
buy and use the book, and the result would 
be injustice to the subject and confusion of 
mind on the part of the student. The 
author pretended that the book was an 
independ.ent production ; Mr. Caird denied 
this, and asked for a legal injunction pro¬ 
hibiting its publication on the ground that 
it was, though confused and inaccurate, 






172 


Old Memories 


a pretended rendering of his own lectures. 
He sought to prove his conclusion by comparing 
the Aids with a previous, openly-professed, 
type-written copy of Caird's lectures, against 
the publication of which an injunction had 
already been obtained. For some weeks 
I was engaged in making this comparison 
and proving the affinity of the two produc¬ 
tions ; and, naturally, I was called as witness, 
and principal witness, in the case. I shall 
not follow its history further than by saying 
that it was won by Caird before the Sheriff, 
lost on appeal to the Edinburgh legal 
authorities, and won finally before the House 
of Lords. Until that time, the rights of a 
professor to publish his own lectures were not 
indisputably exclusive. Caird, as witness 
in a law court, was most impressive. He 
seemed to be eager to give his opponents 
the full rights of their contentions; but, 
having made every possible concession, there 
came a broadside from him that swept every¬ 
thing clean away. He was in very low 
spirits as we walked home together from the 
law court. But he managed, in his shy 
way, to ask me how he had done. ''You 
reminded me of Sam Weller, Mr. Caird,” 






Old Memories 


173 


I said, ''You seemed to look round at the end 
and say—'Is there any other gentleman 
who would like to ask me anything ?'"You 
rascal!" he replied: and the clouds lifted. 

What with my prolonged visits to Scotland, 
the examinership and the litigation, the winter 
and spring of 1883-84 passed quite pleasantly, 
And my wife had a fuller and richer life than 
ever, for our eldest son was born in September, 
1883.* Then came the election of the 
Principal of the North Wales University 
College for which I was a candidate, backed 
by my Glasgow teachers and pupils and 
friends. In one sense, I had set my heart 
on the office ; for, so far as I can judge, I 
can say without the least touch of exaggeration 
that I would have given my life for the 
well-being of the college. But before the 
election day had arrived, my hopes had been 
well chastened. The Calvinistic Methodist 
influence, inspired and sanctified by Principal 
Edwards and his father, ran against me like 
a powerful stream. And, in the second 
place, the scrutiny of my past life was too 
minute to leave one fleckless. My " iniqui¬ 
ties " were too well " marked " to enable me 

* Elias Henry Jones, M.A., author of The Road to Endor, 






174 Old Memories 

'' to stand.” For instance, I was asked by a 
friend on the College Council if I could 
refute the charge made against me that I 
had '' smoked a cigar on the street at Forth 
Dinorwig on a Sunday afternoon ! ” 

Fortunately both for the college and for me, 
the choice of the electors fell on Mr., now 
Sir Harry Reichel, a very distinguished Oxford 
scholar, and, I may add, after many years of 
close intimacy and friendship, an unselfish 
and judicious man—in whom trust grows from 
year to year as his character of a perfect 
gentleman reveals itself more and more. 

I felt the disappointment deeply ; but only 
for a few days. The deeper roots of my 
ambition had been unselfish and impersonal, 
and, as a consequence, healing came very 
quickly. Besides, I had still a chance of 
being elected as professor of philosophy in 
the college, and my prospects were quite 
hopeful. Only as the afternoon wore on 
and evening came, on the day of the election, 
did I know real anxiety. Matters did look 
somewhat dark as the hours lengthened 
without bringing any news ; for the professor¬ 
ship was the last string of my bow that I 
genuinely valued. It appears that I was 






Old Memories 


175 


elected straightway when the Council met, 
and with the greatest cordiality, and that 
the meeting then passed on at once to the 
next business, the secretary forgetting both 
to inform the other candidate, Mr. Joseph 
Solomon, who was waiting in an adjoining 
room, and also to send a message to me! 
I entered on my work at Bangor with the 
opening of the winter session of 1884-85, and 
when I received the first moiety of my salary, 
we owed no man anything, and yet we had 
ten shillings in the bank. My wife and I 
had weathered the storm and come to port. 

At that time and for some years afterwards 
the Welsh colleges prepared their students 
for the examinations of the University of 
London. There was no University of Wales. 
Philosophy did not enter into the curriculum 
of the candidates for the degree of B.A., till 
their final year, and even then only as an 
option. Students who preferred mathe¬ 
matics might go on with that subject and 
omit philosophy altogether. 

A happy chance brought me during the 
first session two students who had passed 
their '' First B.A.,'' and were taking 
philosophy for one of their final subjects. 




176 


Old Memories 


They were both preparing for the ministry 
of the Baptist Church. One of them, 
Mr. John Thomas, had been a working miner. 
He passed the degree examination in philo¬ 
sophy at the head of the year’s list after a 
bare twelve months’ study and he took the 
M.A. degree afterwards in the same subject. 
He was afterwards appointed minister of an 
important Baptist chapel in Liverpool, and 
became one of the best known preachers 
of his day. The second student was Mr. Silas 
Morris. He has for many years been the 
trusted and esteemed Principal of the College 
in Bangor for training ministers of the 
Baptist Church. I was much less fortunate 
during the second session, so far as the 
inner work of the college was concerned. 
I had still two students, but neither of them 
was bright. The intellectual light of one 
of them was a very weak jet; and teaching 
left him uninformed and happy, and me 
helpless and despairing. The simplest logical 
deduction and the most well-worn was beyond 
his reach. Do what I would, I could not get 
him to see that one might not conclude that 
all animals are men ” from '' all men are 
animals.” My outlook as professor was not 





Old Memories 


177 


bright. The best students naturally chose 
to go on with mathematics, a subject of which 
they knew something already, rather than 
to take up a new subject the nature of which 
no definition could make quite plain. It 
looked as if I could never be of much value 
to the college ; and I found the consciousness 
of being of little use very heavy to bear 
During that winter I had thoughts of resign¬ 
ing, and of seeking my livelihood elsewhere 
than in Wales. The temptation was 
strengthened by other facts : amongst them 
one which I still remember, not without 
resentment. The professors, and I believe 
Reichel, the Principal, also, delivered courses 
of extension lectures in the larger towns 
of North Wales. Naturally and rightly, all 
reasonable means were used in order to 
secure the success of these courses : on that 
success depended in great part that of the 
college itself. But I found myself one evening 
in a neighbouring town, whither I had been 
sent to deliver a series of extension lectures, 
expected by no one. The lectures had not 
been advertised anywhere, nobody knew 
anytliing about them, and, needless to say, 
no hall or meeting place of any kind had been 

12 




178 


Old Memories 


secured. I felt silly and helpless, and not a 
little indignant. I thought that I was able, 
without any extraneous help, to secure my 
failures. 

How this misadventure came about I never 
enquired, and I do not know. Even if the 
course I was to give was only overlooked 
and forgotten, there remains the plain fact 
that its success had not been an object of care 
to anyone. I believe that it was thought 
best at the time by good friends of the college, 
and even of myself, that the little candle I 
carried about lit in Wales should be kept 
under a bushel. Other lights would shine the 
more triumphantly. I need hardly say that 
the Principal himself knew and suspected 
nothing—^he has neither faith in devious 
paths to good ends, nor the capacity to follow 
them. However, all this came to an end 
when, encouraged by Edward Caird, I spoke 
out and showed that my endurance had 
come to an end. After the storm broke, 
there was clear air; and I did not resign. 

Instead of resigning, I thought I would 
try to let a few of the best students know 
what kind of diet I could offer them in 
philosophy. So I invited a number of young 








Old Memories 


179 


men, most of whom were about to become 
ministers, to meet me on Saturday mornings, 
and read John Caird's Introduction to the 
Philosophy of Religion. Amongst these, I 
remember, were the Rev. Professor John Owen 
Jones* and Professor Edward Edwards.J 
The experiment succeeded. All these men 
took philosophy for their final B.A. I had 
found my footing in the college and had no 
more anxiety of that kind. 

Meantime, educational affairs beyond the 
College became interesting, and were ulti¬ 
mately of great significance. 

One evening, during the first or the second 
college session, I was dining at Treborth, 
as the guest of Mr. Richard Davies, M.P. for 
Anglesey. On the opposite side of the table 
sat my friend, Mr. Wm. Rathbone, M.P., 
who told me that he was going to 
speak for Mr. Davies on the morrow at 
Llangefni. I asked him if he would not 
speak about the Intermediate Education Bill 
which was being held back from year to 
year, in spite of the powerful case made by 

* Late of the Preparatory School, Bala. 

I Professor of History, University College of Wales, 
Aberystwyth. 





i8o 


Old Memories 


Lord Aberdare's Commission. Mr. Rathbone 
replied, “ How can I ? Your Welsh members 
are afraid of the Bill. It contains a provision 
for a penny on the rates for the support of 
the schools; and they say that the very 
notion of an increased rate will infuriate 
their constituents." I was thoroughly in¬ 
dignant, and vehemently assured Mr. Rathbone 
that, if the option between no rate and no 
schools on the one side and both the rate 
and the schools on the other were placed 
before my countrymen, they would decisively 
choose the latter. Mr. Rathbone was not hard 
to persuade. He was tempted to put aside the 
speech he had already prepared, and he took 
me for a further talk to a private room ; then, 
late at night, he dismissed me, saying, 
"Well! ril see if what you say is true. Go 
home 1 I am going to prepare another speech.'' 

A day or two afterwards I found 
Mr. Rathbone excitedly calling for me at the 
foot of the stairs, in the Old College. As soon 
as he saw me, both his hands went up into the 
air and he cried, "You were quite right, 
Jones 1 I put the matter before the audience 
at Llangefni and the vote for the schools and 
the rate was unanimous. And now," he 




Old Memories i8i 

added, you must organize ! and we shall 
get the Bill read a second time, late as the 
session is/' 

The task of organizing, at my request, 
was put in much more competent and 
experienced hands than mine. Mr. Cadwaladr 
Davies, Secretary of the College, took 
the matter up, and in a very few weeks 
meetings were held in the towns of North 
Wales calling for the Bill and accepting the 
rate. At the same time, Mr. R. A. Jones, 
barrister-at-law at Liverpool, one of the 
most enthusiastic friends the University 
College ever had, might have been seen, 
bareheaded, rushing from one place to another 
in Anglesey (where he had much influence), 
and persuading the little School Boards to 
meet and pass resolutions and send them up 
to their member, accepting the rate and 
demanding the Bill. 

I addressed meetings at Llanberis, Blaenau 
Festiniog, and elsewhere, and on no single 
occasion was a single hand raised against 
the rating provisions of the Bill. But the 
meeting for the purposes of the Bill at Bangor 
brought another interesting event into my 
life, which I can hardly pass by in silence. 






i 82 


Old Memories 




for it made me once more take my professional 
existence in my hands. In the course of his 
speech, Reichel gave away his own right 
and that of his staff to take any public side 
in party politics. '' Neither I nor my 
colleagues would be here,’' he said, were 
this a political question.” One of my Scotch 
colleagues, on hearing this, whispered gruffly 
in my ear, ” Jones ! you are to speak. If 
you do not contradict that statement, I 
shall ask the chairman’s permission to speak, 
and do it myself.” I was nothing loath : 
and made it quite clear to the audience 
that in becoming professors of the college 
we had given up none of the rights of good 
citizens : and expressed the hope that some 
day I would be addressing them on a political 
question from that platform : I did not know 
if we, the professors, were more competent 
to judge of political matters than the tailors 
and shoe-makers of the town : but we had 
had the opportunities of a better education, 
and more might justly be expected and 
demanded of us when the good of the country 
was at stake. 

After the meeting was over, the Principal 
and I walked together to Upper Bangor 




Old Memories 183 

and discussed our difference. His view was 
that the conditions under which the college 
was starting on its way were such that for 
the staff to take a side in questions of party 
politics would be to imperil its existence. 
I maintained that, if we did not claim our 
freedom at the beginning and go our own way 
with little regard to ignorant public opinion, 
we should never be free men nor worthy to 
be teachers of youth or leaders of the com¬ 
munity. The discussion, which was perfectly 
friendly as well as frank throughout, closed 
with Reichehs saying that, in his view, the 
college would dismiss the professor who took 
a public part in a political struggle ; and in 
my replying that I would bring that matter 
to a practical test on the first occasion that 
offered. 

As it happened the first occasion arose 
not long afterwards. I was invited to speak 
during a parliamentary election by Mr. Richard 
Davies, in Anglesey. Now, Mr. Davies was 
one of the two Vice-Presidents of the College, 
and the very last man that anyone would 
accuse of imprudence or hasty action of any 
kind. It was evident that I could not make 
a political speech under safer auspices ; and 





Old Memories 


184 

I promised to go. Mr. Rathbone heard of 
the matter and wrote at once to Mr. Davies 
saying, '' It would never do ! Mr. Davies 
sent on the message to me, but the matter 
had a personal side of which Mr. Davies 
knew nothing, and I refused to give up the 
engagement. I went and spoke, and spoke 
with the more earnestness, and probable 
effect, because I knew the personal con¬ 
sequences that might follow. It was at 
Llanerchymedd; and the audience was most 
enthusiastic. Then I spoke again for 
Mr. Davies at Beaumaris—a poor speech and 
a poor audience. 

By this time the local conservative press 
had taken the matter in hand, and it appeared 
that it had at its command some vigorous 
language to spend on me. Concurrently 
with the attacks of the newspapers came the 
private, personal pressure of Mr. Cadwaladr 
Davies, the Secretary of the College, himself 
a well-known Liberal and sharing my views. 
He agreed with the Principal as to the risk 
to the college and also as to the obligations 
of the college staff under those early cir¬ 
cumstances. I replied that my Scottish 
colleagues, at least, and possibly others, took 







Old Memories 


185 


my view of the situation and that, if I was 
dismissed, they would resign. In short, I 
refused to give way. Mr. Davies then, 
expert man as he always was, took a different 
line of action. He told those who were 
responsible for the attacks upon me to let 
me be, lest worse should follow; and he so 
exaggerated the political influence I might 
exert that I was let alone. It is hardly 
necessary to add that nothing followed. 
No attention of any kind was paid to the 
question, so far as I ever heard : and the 
professors of the University College of North 
Wales were permitted to enjoy, without any 
question, the ordinary rights of the ordinary 
citizen. 

The Intermediate Education Act was 
passed in 1889, and immediately afterwards 
Mr. Arthur Acland, M.P., invited a few 
men known to be interested in the subject 
to his house at Clynnog, to meet Mr. Thomas 
Ellis, M.P.,and to discuss the clauses of the 
Act. It was a most interesting group that 
met, and every member of it was keen to 
discover and make the best use of the 
possibilities of the Act. The group included 
the Rev. Professor Ellis Edwards, of Bala, 







i86 


Old Memories 


Mr. John Powell, of Wrexham, Mr. R. A. 
Jones, of Liverpool, Mr. Cadwaladr Davies, 
of Bangor, and myself. 

Two different and mutually inconsistent 
lines of policy were advocated at this time 
in Wales by well-meaning and well-informed 
men. One party desired to establish a small 
number of schools—say, about one in each 
county, and to equip these thoroughly. 
The other party, believing that to bring the 
opportunities of education within the reach 
of the people was of vital importance, thought 
there ought to be an Intermediate School 
in every natural centre of rural life. I was 
of the latter opinion. Bring the opportuni¬ 
ties of mental as well as physical health and 
growth home to the people.'' I remember 
saying in a speech in an Anglesey village. 

One school for Anglesey ! ! I would as soon 
have one oven for baking the bread." The 
illustration was the more telling in that 
every smallest village, and every little 
cottage that stood aloof by itself, had its 
own oven. 

All of us who met at Clynnog took this same 
view. It involved the building of a very 
large number of new schools, and their 







187 


Old Memories 

maintenance afterwards. We indicated the 
places in which we believed the schools in the 
northern counties of Wales should be placed 
by sticking pins into a map ; and before we 
had done the map was bristling with them. 
We were well aware that we were indulging 
ourselves in constructing a scheme that 
was ideal: I do not think any one of us 
believed it to be attainable. But some few 
years after this time, I was addressing the 
closing meeting of the County School at 
Carnarvon, and I told the audience about 
that meeting of the educational enthusiasts 
at Clynnog. I had to add, however, and 
I did so with exceeding great pride and 
gratitude, that we had not stuck enough 
pins in the map ! We had underestimated 
the strength of the national impulse for 
higher education. It was the more mar¬ 
vellous in that the national movement for 
the establishment of the schools came 
immediately after the founding of the colleges. 

The results of our deliberations at Clynnog 
were gathered into a little volume by our 
hosts, Mr. Arthur Acland, and Mr. Thomas 
Ellis. We aimed at guiding public opinion 
on the matter; and there was one 






Old Memories 


i88 

adventitious circumstance which proved of 
considerable help. Our host was an influential 
member of the Carnarvonshire County 
Council. He led that Council, for he was 
the only person who knew the powers con¬ 
ferred by the Act: and he got it to move at 
once. In this way Carnarvonshire quietly 
gave the lead to the other counties, and the 
whole of North Wales moved along the 
lines which we had sketched at our little 
gathering. Of course we employed other 
means also. Mr. Thomas Ellis never lost 
an opportunity of supporting the good cause 
by his public speeches and otherwise, and 
other members of our group did the same. 
I advocated our scheme and pressed the cause 
home as well as I could in the public press : 
for several weeks a series of letters which I 
wrote appeared in seven Welsh and eight 
English newspapers. All through the winter 
Mr. Cadwaladr Davies and I went together, 
authorized by no one, at our own expense, 
and thanked by no one, and held meetings 
every week in which we pleaded for the 
establishment of the schools. Some of these 
meetings were well attended and enthusiastic ; 
others were in every respect the opposite. 







Old Memories 


189 

I remember once looking through the window 
before entering a place of meeting and saying 
to Cadwaladr Davies '' Myn gafr ! ’does yma 
neb.” (” By the goat, there isn’t a single 
person here.”) I was wrong. Before the 
meeting closed, there were several persons 
present. Perhaps I should add, however, 
that this was the nadir of our experience. 

Above all, I should like to say that, in 
the meantime, while this struggle was going 
on and prospering in North Wales, Principal 
Viriamu Jones was maintaining the same 
cause in South Wales, and, literally, giving 
his life for it. 

It was a wonderful .movement, and to 
witness it was a privilege. Wales proved 
itself capable of being stirred by a noble 
purpose—which is about the best thing one 
can say of either an individual or a nation. 
Technical obstacles were swept out of its 
course. Long before they were legally 
authorized, the County Councils in Wales, 
without a single exception, had committed 
themselves to the penny rate ; and it was 
enacted—so far as I can judge, by men who 
had as little formal authority as the tailors 
of Tooley Street—that the schools had to be 







igo Old Memories 

provided free by the localities where they were 
placed, and built on free-hold ground. 

Perhaps it will interest the reader to be 
given a concrete example of this national 
movement, which, so far as I know, stands 
to this day unique and without a rival. 
The most interesting in my experience was 
the struggle for continuing the little '' higher” 
school, established about 300 years ago by 
a good bishop, at Bottwnog in the Lleyn 
Peninsula. I was on holiday at the time 
with my family at Abersoch ; and I took 
part in the struggle on the challenge of the 
Bishop of St. Davids,* then Dean of St. 
Asaph, who had attended the school as a lad. 

A meeting was held at (I think it was) 
Llanengan, Bishop Owen’s native village, 
and addressed by him and others. During 
its course I discovered that the audience 
had a wrong impression of the conditions 
under which the Bottwnog School could be 
continued. They thought that it might 
remain in the future, what it had been in 
the past, a Church of England school. I 
explained that this was impossible. Either 
the school would be an Intermediate School 


* Rt. Rev. John Owen. 







Old Memories 


under the national scheme like others, or 
else it would be closed and the funds would be 
used as scholarships for the brighter Bottwnog 
boys, or in order to improve the equipment 
of the new school at Pwllheli. The first 
result of my interference was that I scared 
away the support of the episcopalians and 
land-owners. The donations which had been 
promised, and which amounted to some 
£700, were withdrawn. But it was not the 
only result. The support of the people of 
Lleyn, which on the whole is chapel-going, 
was gained, and, as time went on, made more 
and more secure and full. The last stage of 
the struggle was delightful to witness and 
is worth recording. 

I received a telegram one morning asking 
me to meet Mr. Thomas Ellis, M.P., at Sarn, 
and go with him to Aberdaron—an interesting 
old village at the very point of the Lleyn 
Peninsula, supposed to have retained more 
aboriginal Welsh features, and to be in that 
respect more interesting, than any other 
place. The policy of Mr. Ellis, who had 
decisive influence, was to close the school 
at Bottwnog and use the fimds at Pwllheli. 
But when he reached Sarn he found a number 





192 


Old Memories 


of dripping-wet farmers waiting for him, 
ready to expound their rival plan. I had 
summoned them in his name, and he knew 
nothing about it; and they had come through 
the pouring rain. I wished him to hear the 
rural voice pleading for the little school; 
for I thought I knew the way to his heart. 
Mr. Ellis gave his arguments, every one of 
them sound, in support of the view he had 
formed, and made it quite clear in what ways 
the best boys of Bottwnog would benefit 
from the bigger and better equipped school 
at Pwllheli. But his contentions were 
countered one by one by the homespun 
arguments of the farmers. They held that, 
if the scholarships would be valuable, the 
comparative expenses of upkeep at Pwllheli 
would be heavy. The boys would want 
finer clothes, and to play at cricket and things; 
and instead of shot or bara-llaeth they would 
want mutton-chops and puddings. ''No, 
Mr. Ellis, let us have our boys in their ribbed 
breeks (trwsus rhesog) which their mothers 
can patch, and let them play about our 
own fields, and live on bread and milk ; and 
let us keep our little school; and let Pwllheli 
look after itself.’' It was evident that, 





Old Memories 


193 


now and then, Mr. Ellis was touched by their 
simple earnestness, well-mixed, as it was, 
with homely shrewdness. He had not the 
heart to hold his own against them. 

It was late in the afternoon when the inter¬ 
view came to an end, and Mr. Ellis started 
for Aberdaron with his friend, Mr. D. R. Daniel. 
I went with them a part of the way ; but I 
had to address a meeting on behalf of the 
school that evening, at Sarn, and a memorable 
meeting it was for its enthusiastic unanimity. 
It was some years before I heard the end of 
the Bottwnog visit of that splendid Welshman, 
Mr. Tom Ellis ; for, before that year was out, 
I had left Wales for Scotland. It appears 
that Mr. Ellis did not go to Aberdaron, after 
all; it was too late. He turned back, and 
went about through the village of Bottwnog, 
and had a look at the little school, and 
strolled round the little fields which belonged 
to it, and peered in through the windows. 
And then he said, raising his fist, '' They 
shall not close this little school.'' Nor was 
it closed. 

After a brief interval, during which 

Mr. Ellis had been active, I received a hint 

which I at once conveyed to the farmers 

13 






194 


Old Memories 


that, provided the local subscriptions were 
sufficiently large, the school would be con¬ 
tinued. The result was wonderful. The 
Lleyn Peninsula and two successive market- 
days at the delightful old town of Pwllheli 
were seething with Intermediate Education 
and the defence of the Bottwnog School. 
About the close of that memorable fortnight, 
I met a committee which was in charge of 
the movement at Bottwnog. I found its 
members there and then binding themselves 
legally to be responsible for £1,200 in support 
of the school. And I shall never forget the 
two way-weary men, who had walked through 
the heat all the way from Aberdaron, as 
they entered the meeting late, looking as 
shy and guilty as if they had been stealing 
sheep. They had sought, and, I believe, 
received subscriptions in every house in 
Aberdaron, the subscriptions varying from 
two pence to ten pounds. The memory 
of that Bottwnog movement still gives me 
joyous pride—the common people of Wales 
proved so much above the common. 

But I must return to my proper sphere 
and work, which were those of a professor 
in a young college that was gradually and 






Old Memories 


securely gaining the good-will and confidence 
of the community. There was something 
of a storm in its first days. Some members 
of the Council wished its meetings to be open, 
and representatives of the press to be allowed 
to attend its sittings and make a public 
record of its proceedings. Reichel held 
resolute views against the proposal, and 
would probably have resigned, had it been 
carried. But it was rejected, and all went 
well. The staff was on the side of the 
Principal in this matter and the Council 
acquiesced, and the relations between them 
were, what they have been since, thoroughly 
harmonious and happy. Naturally there was 
no lack of opportunity for differences of 
opinion, and the different academical 
experiences of the members of the staff, 
heirs, as they were, of the traditions of 
Oxford, Cambridge, and Scotland suggested 
to them different directions which the college 
might take. But neither was there any lack 
of opportunity for discussing these differences, 
and doing so informally, in our little social 
gatherings and very often at the Principal's 
dinner-table. Happy little dining-parties 
naturally generate agreement and sometimes 








196 


Old Memories 


wisdom as well. At any rate the first group 
of professors at Bangor College, which, I 
understand, now goes by the name of '' the 
old guard,’' moved together harmoniously, 
and the college was founded mainly on 
Scottish lines. Its academic aims were always 
high ; it sought public favour only by the 
excellence of the work it did; and it main¬ 
tained at their true level the best ideals of 
collegiate life. As the years passed the college 
developed securely and peaceably, and its 
peaceful prosperity left no historical foot¬ 
prints. The students increased in number ; 
more subjects were added to the curriculum 
and taught, and new lecturers and professors 
were appointed. 

Nor is there anything of importance or 
interest to record about myself during these 
years. The number of students taking my 
own subject was quite satisfactory, and the 
place of philosophy was quite safe. Nor 
were there any mishaps in the degree examina¬ 
tions, for, during the seven years of my 
professorship at Bangor, I believe none of my 
students failed. And I had a most happy 
home. We had moved from Upper Bangor 
two miles into the country; and we lived 





Old Memories 197 

in the front portion of a large farm-house, 
most appropriately called Perfeddgoed. My 
wife lost her heart to it, when she saw the 
grass plot in front of the house surrounded by 
snowdrops, and her love and longing for it 
deepened, when, later in the season, she 
rambled in the wood at the back of the 
house and saw the very atmosphere tinged 
with the blue of the hyacinths that grew in 
such plenty around the path. Two of ^our 
children were born there, and, with the 
three who were older, were nursed and 
played around their mother amidst the peace 
of the green fields and in hearing of the songs 
of the birds. In the mornings, my wife 
usually walked with me on the way to college, 
and the whole expanse of the Snowdon 
range, from Snowdon itself to the sea at 
Penmaenmawr, lay before her. 

On Saturdays some of the students usually 
came up to Perfeddgoed and we played at 
quoits in one of the fields. Not infrequently, 
I preached on Sundays in one of the chapels 
of the Calvinistic Methodists. And, during 
one winter, I taught sol-fa one evening a week 
to a number of quarry men and farmers’ 
sons in the little chapel hard by Perfeddgoed. 






Old Memories 


198 

One of these sol-fa pupils became well- 
known in Bangor and the neighbourhood 
through his rendering of the most pre¬ 
posterously braggart song—both tune and 
words—ever written. It was written for 
him, because it suited him ; and he delighted 
in it, whether he sang it in one of the little 
local Eisteddfods, or in his own home : where 
he used to take his stand at successive 
steps of the stair-case and ask from the 
different heights—“ How does it sound from 
here, father ? Richard Prichard, singing 
The Elephant, was a public benefactor of no 
mean worth. 

My last vacation, while professor at the 
University College of North Wales, found me a 
very busy man. During the previous winter 
and spring, I had delivered lectures on 
Browning in Cambridge, amongst other places, 
to one of the societies of the university. 
A resolution was passed in a very cordial 
fashion, expressing a request that I should 
publish the lecture. I agreed to the request; 
and, as soon as vacation began, set about 
fulfilling it. But the lecture grew into a 
book under my hands, and, at first, more or 
less against my will. Ultimately the 







Old Memories 


199 


exigencies of competition for a professorship 
in Scotland made it desirable that the book 
should be published before the vacation 
ended.* In consequence I was most fully 
occupied. During good days I might have 
been seen writing, within the power of the 
passionate grip of Browning's poetry, under 
one of the noble elm trees at Perfeddgoed. 
The proofs were read at Abersoch, in the 
intervals of the Bottwnog campaign ; and 
at the close of the vacation my book on 
Browning was published and soon after¬ 
wards I was elected Professor of Logic and 
English in the University of St. Andrews. 

That election, with the new chapter in 
my life which it opened, is the theme of 
the next chapter. 

* Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher. 
(Glasgow: MacLehose, 1891.) 











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Old Memories 


Chapter VII 


A T the close of the winter session of 
^ ^ 1890-91, Professor Campbell Fraser 

retired from the chair of logic and meta¬ 
physics in the University of Edinburgh, and 
candidates were invited, as usual, to send in 
their applications. The news of the vacancy 
was sent to me to Wales by Edward Caird. In 
doing so he told me, in his frank and imper¬ 
sonal way, that, if Professor John Watson, 
of Kingston, Canada, were going to be a 
candidate, he would give him his full support 
as having the first and strongest claim. But 
Professor Watson had informed Caird that 
he did not wish to leave Canada, and, conse¬ 
quently, Caird wrote to me telling me to 
apply for the Edinburgh chair and promising 
his help. 

I was most reluctant, mainly, I need hardly 
say, because I had not the least hope of being 
successful. I shared the view with many 
others that Andrew Seth’s election was 


201 




202 


Old Memories 


sure. I gave Caird my reasons against 
applying, and urgently begged him not to 
constrain me to enter into a hopeless candida¬ 
ture. Caird replied that his estimate of my 
chances of success were the same as my own. 
'' Nevertheless,'' he added, if you are 
willing to leave Wales and return to Scotland, 
you must come out into this field. If you 
make a favourable impression at Edinburgh, 
as you will, you will have a good chance of 
succeeding Seth at St. Andrews." So far 
was I from being content to yield to his 
argument, convincing as it was, that I went to 
Glasgow on purpose to discuss the matter 
with him, and with two others of the friends 
and guides of my younger days, namely, 
Professor A. B. Bruce and Dr. Marcus Dods. 
I tried to induce Bruce and Dods to help me 
to resist Caird, but they shared his views, and 
I was left without any living or real option. 

It was a strong candidature, for, amongst 
the applicants for the chair, besides Professor 
Andrew Seth was Robert Adamson |; but 
there was never any doubt as to the issue. 
Professor Andrew Seth, as he was then 

t Afterwards Professor of Logic and Rhetoric, Univer¬ 
sity of Glasgow. 






Old Memories 203 

called,* was elected, and the field was thus 
thrown open to candidates for the succession 
in the University of St. Andrews ; and this 
time my candidature was earnest. And, I 
may say in passing, my experience at Edin¬ 
burgh proved exceedingly helpful, as Edward 
Caird had conjectured. 

Amongst the customs of the Scottish 
Universities which at that time were on no 
account to be violated was that which con¬ 
strained candidates for professorships to go 
round the houses or offices of the members of 
the University Court in order to show them¬ 
selves. Some of the electors did not like 
the custom, and all the candidates disliked 
it with more or less intensity. At the last 
moment permissible I went to St. Andrews 
and thence to Dundee, for this purpose. 
The University College of Dundee had just 
before this time been made a part of, or at 
least intimately connected with, the Univer¬ 
sity of St. Andrews. The reception I met with, 
especially at St. Andrews, was most courteous. 
There was no call for overwhelming courtesy 
at Dundee, for, as it proved, none of the 
electors there had resolved to vote against 


* Afteiwards Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison. 









204 Old Memories 

me. My visit north ended at the beautiful 
home of Principal Peterson, where I spent a 
very happy night. 

During the course of the evening, I caught 
glimpses of the relations between the Univer¬ 
sity of St. Andrews and the University 
College of Dundee. They gave me cause for 
reflexion. Nothing definite was told me, but 
there was that in '' the atmosphere '' of the 
institutions which gave me pause. I spent 
a great part of my time in the train, as I 
travelled home on the following morning, in 
writing a letter to Edward Caird expressing 
my wish to retire from the candidature and 
giving my reasons. But I had torn up the 
letter before I reached Bangor. Matters had 
gone too far to permit me to retire with any 
show of good reason. I had troubled my 
friends for testimonials, printed them and 
sent them in and done everything that a 
candidate had to do in the way of stating his 
claims. The only practical result of my 
enlightenment as to the condition of affairs 
was to leave me indifferent to the result of 
my candidature. My desire for a change 
sank very low and I almost wished for 
rejection. But what looked like a haphazard 






Old Memories 


205 


collection of contingencies brought about the 
opposite result : I was elected by a majority 
of one of the United Court of St. Andrews 
and Dundee. Both of the St. Andrews 
Principals, namely Donaldson, Principal of 
the University, and Cunningham, Principal 
of St. Mary’s College, voted for another 
candidate : so did all the other St. Andrews 
electors except two. One of these two voted 
for me, and thereby equalized the total votes 
of the St. Andrews and Dundee electors, all 
of which latter voted for me at the desire, or 
the bidding even, of Peterson. The other was 
called to a funeral in Wales : some country¬ 
man of mine had most opportunely died and 
he happened to have been intimately related 
to Professor Pettigrew. The absence of the 
latter turned matters in my favour : other¬ 
wise the casting vote of Principal Donaldson 
would have been given to another candidate. 

I do not think that these facts would be 
worth recording were it not for other events 
which had something of the same character. 
That is to say, they helped to stamp me as a 
'' Dundee man,” thrust upon the University 
of St. Andrews against its will. 

I have referred to the halcyon weather in 





206 


Old Memories 


which I first taught philosophy in Wales, 
and how soon the sky was clouded over. 
Events took exactly the opposite course in 
St. Andrews. Circumstances could hardly 
have been more adverse than they were at 
the beginning, in other words, the disadvan¬ 
tages under which a new professor began his 
work could hardly have been greater : at 
the end and long before, the sky was clear, 
the difficulties had all disappeared : what I 
was, and had done, and was going to do were 
all perverted in a different fashion, and I 
learnt how kind St. Andrews could be. 

I believe that the details may prove 
interesting, and I will venture to relate 
them. 

It is customary for a professor in a Scottish 
University to give an Opening Address upon 
entering the duties of his office. On that 
occasion, and that only, he appears in state 
walking by the side of the Principal, behind 
the mace-bearer, and in front of his colleagues. 
The largest hall available is used on the 
occasion, and packed close by the students 
and leading inhabitants of the city. Nor 
was any item of the ceremonial omitted at 
St. Andrews, and there was one unusual. 




207 


Old Memories 

additional item which I carried beneath my 
college cap as I walked on the left hand of 
the Principal. I had been told, just before 
I started for the college, that the students had 
resolved to refuse me a hearing, and to let 
me know in other ways as well what they 
thought of a professor of St. Andrews who 
had “ sold himself to Dundee, for votes.'' 
As an old Glasgow alumnus I knew pretty 
well what university students could do in 
the way of disorderly conduct, and how con¬ 
vincingly they could make known their lack 
of respect for a professor. Such were the 
conditions under which I went to face my 
first St. Andrews audience. 

Almost at my first words, the tempest 
broke. '' Principles taken upon trust," I 
said, quoting David Hume, " conclusions 
lamely deduced." The statement was 
received by the students with an amount and 
energy of applause that would have surprised 
Hume. But they took a new meaning out 
of his words. " The principles taken upon 
trust " became " Principals Donaldson and 
Cunningham, taken upon trust," and in that 
sense the statement obtained the playful and 
harmonious and most uproarious assent of 








208 


Old Memories 


all the students. There was great laughter ; 
and, luckily, I had myself caught the double 
entendre of the phrase and could appreciate 
the humorous turn which was given to it. 

After this outburst I had an attentive 
hearing for a short time. Then, sudden as 
a thunder-clap, there were roars and shouts of 
laughter once more. I thought that I had 
made some slip of the tongue, and repeated 
the phrase which seemed to me so innocent. 
The repetition brought the same uproarious 
result. I concluded at once that the concerted 
moment had come and that the struggle with 
the students was beginning : and I had some 
remark which I felt I could fling flaming 
across the audience from end to end. I have 
no doubt that the remark would have been 
provocative and injudicious, and I imagine 
that I must have felt that at the time. At 
any rate I fought against it, and stood before 
the audience for some seconds in deep anger 
and deadly silence. Then I went on with 
my address, and, to the very end, received 
the most generous hearing. 

It was thought by some of those present 
that I had cowed and silenced the students : 
I knew them better, and was given the true 





Old Memories 


209 


explanation by that most courteous of my 
new colleagues, Mr. Purdie, Professor of 
Chemistry. I had spoken about '' hints of 
the truth, and “ hints ” was a word that no 
professor at St. Andrews could use without 
producing an uproar. Why ? I asked, in 
wonder : for a more innocent word I could 
not think of. '' Well,” he said,'' the Professor 
of Latin has written a class text-book and called 
it '‘Hints to Latin Prose.'' The situation was 
at once intelligible : it was a new and very 
good example of the humorous idiocy into 
which students willingly plunge on such 
occasions. 

But another and more significant fact had 
come to light. The students had revised 
their first intention and unanimously agreed 
to give me, at my inaugural address, the 
quietest and most respectful hearing. Pro¬ 
fessor Lewis Campbell, just before the meeting, 
had requested a few of the students' leaders 
to come over to his house to see and speak to 
him. And he told them, not without indigna¬ 
tion, the injustice that was being done to 
me, and the true facts of the election. There 
was no professor in St. Andrews at that time 
who more fully commanded the respectful 







210 Old Memories 

trust of the students than Professor Lewis 
Campbell. They accepted his statement at 
once and, in the characteristic and impulsive 
ways of students when massed together, gave 
me at once the best evidence of their good¬ 
will, namely, their trust and confidence. 
Neither then, nor at any other time, did I 
experience from my students anything except 
the most friendly courtesy. 

But the ordeal for me extended on that 
day beyond the inaugural address. The whole 
staff of the St. Andrews professors, that is, 
of the United and of St. Mary's College, went 
from the place of public meeting into the 
room where Senate meetings were then held. 
It was to hear from Principal Donaldson a 
most important statement, and to discuss 
the situation it implied. The statement was 
to the effect that the agreement by which 
the University College at Dundee was con¬ 
nected with the University of St. Andrews 
was illegal and invalid. The friends of 
St. Andrews were to repudiate it on that 
ground, and the Dundee College was to be re¬ 
fused admission into the University. The view 
of Principal Donaldson that the agreement, as 
drawn up, had no legal validity was afterwards 



Old Memories 


2 II 


upheld. But the consequence was, what it 
was easy for outsiders to anticipate, the 
agreement was amended and the union of 
the Dundee college with the University of 
St. Andrews made indisputable. But these 
consequences did not arrive for some years. 
Meantime, as I was told in the meeting of 
professors, told plainly and with incisive 
energy, by Principal Cunningham, the 
validity of my appointment as Professor at 
St. Andrews depended on that of the agreement 
between the two institutions. If the latter 
was worthless and went for nothing, so, of 
course, did my appointment. 

The remark was as cruel as it was true. 
It meant that I could not be received by the 
professors at St. Andrews as one of their 
colleagues ; and I was rather sorry for myself 
when I thought of what I had done and of 
my future prospects. I had given up a 
happy position as professor in Bangor; 
knowing nothing of the disagreement 
between the two colleges in Scotland, I 
had come to be a professor in one of them, 
bringing with me my wife and large family 
of very small children ; and all this only to 
find that my appointment was a sham, and 







212 


Old Memories 


that, as a matter of fact, I was now a pro¬ 
fessor neither in Wales nor in Scotland. 
Principal Cunningham’s remark, kindly little 
man though he was, cut deep, but it seemed to 
evoke dissent from the other professors. On 
hearing it I at once rose to my feet, and asked 
the permission of Principal Donaldson to 
retire, in order that they might be able to 
discuss the situation more freely. Then, on 
the instant. Professor Lewis Campbell, who 
had been sitting at the other end of the room, 
as senior professor, jumped up, and started to 
limp out of the room seething with indigna¬ 
tion : ''If Professor Jones leaves the room,” 
he said, " I leave the room also.” And all 
my colleagues joined him there and then in 
welcoming my presence as one of themselves 
—and Principal Cunningham turned round to 
me in his goodness of heart and said : "Now 
that we have you. Professor Jones, believe me, 
we are very glad to have you.” 

The complications, so far as I was con¬ 
cerned, ended with this meeting ; and I took 
up my double duties at the University of 
St. Andrews with a mind at peace. There was 
henceforth nothing more secure or clear than 
the kindly comradeship of my colleagues on 







Old Memories 


213 


both sides of the Tay. My duties were 
'' double/' inasmuch as I was responsible for 
the teaching of English literature as well as 
of logic and psychology. The old combina¬ 
tion of '' Logic and Rhetoric " had not been 
disturbed either in St. Andrews or in Glasgow. 
I lectured as Professor of English three times 
a week, commencing my course with the last 
quarter of the i8th century, and dwelling 
chiefly on Burns, Scott, Coleridge, Shelley, 
and Wordsworth. I was astonished at the 
ignorance of the students of the old Scottish 
dialect, and regretted it greatly. The loss 
of it, which is becoming year by year more 
and more complete, is great and irremediable ; 
and it is somewhat surprising to miss the 
study of the dialect from the curriculum of 
the Scottish schools ; for the Scottish people's 
attitude towards their own features is apt to 
be conservative and idolatrous. Except for 
the extreme pressure under which the lectures 
were written, and their consequent defects, 
I enjoyed this part of my work thoroughly. 

The teaching of philosophy also gave me 
greater joy than ever before. As a Scottish 
professor I was free ! I could treat the subjects 
entrusted to my care as I pleased, passing 




214 


Old Memories 


lightly over any elements or aspects which 
I considered of only secondary importance, 
and flinging all the emphasis of my teaching 
upon the others. It was not necessary for 
me any longer to consider the idiosyncrasies 
of an external examiner. I was granted the 
opportunity of making the most of any 
powers that I had, and of carrying my students 
with me if I could, imparting to them as vital 
the truths which seemed vital to me. The 
fulness of the trust, the completeness of the 
responsibility which such liberty implies, is 
priceless ; and I trust that the day will never 
come when that liberty is invaded. The 
democracy of the future cannot afford to 
forget that the responsibility which such 
freedom carries with it is its own inspiration. 

During my second and third sessions as 
professor at the University of St. Andrews, 
I lectured on logic and psychology at the 
University College of Dundee as well as at 
the United College. Professor M’Cormick,* 
in exchange, took over the teaching of English 
at St. Andrews. On this matter the two insti¬ 
tutions had come to an amicable agreement. 

* Now Sir William M’Cormick, m.a., ll.d., Chairman 
University Grants Committee. 






Old Memories 


215 


I am afraid I must say on this matter 
only.'’ Everything else was a matter of 
contention : and, what rendered the situation 
still more hopeless, contentions would arise 
where there was no “ matter '' of any kind to 
call for them. The Senate meetings were by 
far the most painful gatherings I ever knew. 
My own position was, in a way, simple enough 
and easy to maintain. I never pretended to 
belong exclusively to either of the colleges— 
though I confess that my affections tied me 
to the old university. Hence I could vote 
on what seemed to me to be the simple merit 
of the questions, as they arose. But I 
deplored the quarrels. 

I wonder if the reader knows by experience 
what '' savage joy ” means. I had a single 
experience of that state of mind and I shall 
never forget it. It was after the close of my 
third session at St. Andrews. I had been 
elected to succeed Edward Caird in Glasgow : 
nevertheless I thought it was incumbent 
upon me to meet my colleagues at one more 
meeting of the Senate. To break away at 
once might seem discourteous. So I resolved 
to sit amongst them in my place for a short 
while, and then retire ; and in about twenty 




2i6 


Old Memories 


minutes I rose from that great oval table 
around which the members of the Senate sat, 
left the room, and quietly closed the great 
door. I stood for a moment on the mat 
outside the door and at the top of the 
staircase. Then a wild wave of imcontroll- 
able joy broke over me : I had done with the 
Senate quarrels, and need witness none of 
them any more. I danced in silence on that 
mat like a madman, every sinew and muscle 
in my body working, and I knew for the 
first and last time the full savagery of joy. 

I believe that the dispute between 
St. Andrews and Dundee was more bitter during 
the years I happened to be there than at any 
other time. A new agreement was ultimately 
made, and Principal Peterson left Dundee for 
Canada and there was comparative, if not 
complete, calm. At any rate, when I left, I 
carried with me the hearty good wishes of all 
my colleagues, amongst whom I had made 
some lasting friends. The most intimate of 
these was Allan Menzies, Professor of New 
Testament Criticism at St. Mary's College. 
Menzies was a great scholar, possibly, in his 
department, the greatest scholar of his time in 
Scotland ; and he was as gentle and unobtrusive 




Old Memories 


217 

as he was great. As a professor he left 
a life-long impression upon his students, and 
their respect for him deepened as they them¬ 
selves grew in sense and goodness. His 
judgment and also his expression of it were 
as direct as rays of sunshine. They struck 
straight on the object, and to take offence was 
useless, for Menzies had been quite impersonal 
in what he might say. I used to slip over 
into his house in.South Street after dinner or 
supper, for a smoke and an anecdote ; and 
our communion was very sweet. 

Menzies was my guide in difficulties as well 
as my friend in good weather. I remember 
on one occasion receiving, at intervals of some 
two or three hours, a series of letters from one 
of my colleagues. About every other word in 
the letters was singly or doubly underlined— 
underlined by the raging anger of their writer. 
I took them over to Menzies, who simply said, 
“ Never mind them; we have all had the same 
kind of letters from him. Don’t answer 
them.” I took his advice and the storm 
passed. When I next met the writer, he made 
no reference to the cause of his anger, and 
there seemed to me no call for more splutter¬ 
ing than he had already made in his letters. 






2I8 


Old Memories 


My offence was—that I had proposed the 
excision from the University Calendar of a 
sentence in which the standard of the LL.A. 
diploma was said to be the same as that of 
the M.A. degree. 

There was one other friendship formed 
during my life at St. Andrews which has 
proved of the lasting kind. Soon after my 
appointment, as I was sitting working hard 
in preparation for one of my lectures, a 
cheery young aristocrat (in check breeks, as 
I well remember) stepped into my study, and 
asked to shake hands with me. I voted 
against your election on the University 
Court,’' he said,'' and I want to tell you that 
I was wrong, and that I am sorry. But,” he 
added, " I had not seen Tom Ellis then or 
been told what kind of man you are.” This 
was Mr. Munro Ferguson, of Raith and Novar, 
now, on his return home after six years’ 
service as Governor General of Australia, 
called Viscount Novar, but otherwise 
unchanged. His frankness won my heart at 
once, and many a happy week-end I spent at 
Raith, where I found Lady Helen not less kind 
than her husband, and the worthy daughter 
of Lord Dufferin in all that she said and did. 







Old Memories 


219 


Of stirring incidents there were none in my 
life at St. Andrews : but I cannot turn over 
the leaf without mentioning the friendliness 
and hospitality of Principal Donaldson. There 
was one occasion in particular which I must 
not pass over. He invited Professor John 
Burnet and myself to lunch one day, to meet 
Professor Blackie and the Rev. A. K. H. Boyd. 
It was the only occasion on which I saw these 
two conspicuous persons, and the exhibition 
they made of themselves was the more 
interesting because of the sharp contrast 
between them. I sat at the side of the 
Rev. Dr. Boyd who, knowing my friendship 
and esteem for Edward Caird, began at once 
to animadvert generally on his defects, and 
especially on those disclosed by the Gifford 
Lectures which Caird was giving at 
St. Andrews at that time. Otherwise, that is, 
in every external sense. Dr. Boyd’s conduct 
was the very pink of propriety. Over against 
us, on the other side of the table. Professor 
Blackie exhibited opposite characteristics. 
He was full of good nature, much too full to 
sit still. He got up from the table, clapped 
our hostess on the back, and sat down again. 
But not for long. He got up again and 





220 


Old Memories 


stalked up and down beside the table, exchang¬ 
ing competitive witticisms with Dr. Boyd. 
They accentuated each other's oddities, and 
the remark which Burnet made to me after 
lunch was over, and we were leaving the house, 
has proved true. '' Jones," he said, '' we 
shall never forget this day. We have lunched 
with the two cleverest fools in Scotland." 

Besides Professor Blackie I remember 
meeting no other '' celebrity " at St. Andrews 
except Mr. Andrew Lang. I saw him for the 
first time on the golf course, and very nearly 
took him for a caddie : he was so carelessly 
dressed and hung about in such a leisurely 
way. He might have taken my blunder 
playfully. He could play with any subject, 
except John Knox. To Knox he would 
concede no merit of any kind—not even that 
of the most grim and gruesome humour that 
the world of letters has ever known. I did 
not come to know Lang with any intimacy : 
I rather think that Mrs. Lang barred the way. 
She concluded, quite naturally, that I was 
a socially impossible person"; for, in 
answer to a remark which she made about the 
scarcity of books, and especially of new books, 
at St. Andrews, I had said that on that very 






221 


Old Memories 

day I had received a most interesting new 
book. ''What book was that?” she asked. 
" A commentary on the First Epistle to the 
Thessalonians,” I mischievously replied. This 
was at Principal Donaldson's dinner table. 
She immediately turned her back upon me, 
and I saw nothing more of her during the 
dinner except a sturdy pair of shoulders. I 
cannot pass away from Andrew Lang without 
referring to his fondness for little boys, and 
his kindness in giving books and golf clubs 
to one of mine ; and, above all, to the fact 
that a local subscription list for sailors' 
widows or for anyone in distress was pretty 
certain to have the name of Andrew Lang at 
the top. 

Soon after the opening of my third and last 
session at St. Andrews, I received a very 
important communication from Edward Caird. 
I think I remember the very terms of his 
letter. " I have just written,'' he said, 
" accepting an invitation to the Mastership of 
Balliol College, Oxford. My next letter is to 
you, to ask if you would care for an old pair 
of boots. They are not absolutely at my 
disposal, but I shall have something to say 
as to their destination.” 






222 


Old Memories 


I was much more pleased than I can say. 
There was at that time no office in the world 
that seemed to me comparable to that which 
would give me the opportunity of continuing 
the work of Edward Caird : and I think I 
could to-day say the same thing with perfect 
honesty. I recognised that, in writing to me, 
he was assuming that the resolution of Watson 
to remain in Canada still held : I made the 
same assumption. But later on in the session 
—I think I was in Edinburgh at the time, as 
a member of the Joint Board for Preliminary 
Examinations—I received word from Caird 
that Watson was going to be a candidate. 
This fact seemed to me to change the whole 
situation. Caird had committed himself to 
support me under conditions which no longer 
held ; and I felt that I must at once set him 
free by withdrawing from the candidature, 
so that he might give his undivided assistance 
to Professor Watson. I therefore went over 
to Glasgow to settle the matter. But I found 
Caird resolute to run us both ; and I abso¬ 
lutely failed to gain his assent to my with¬ 
drawal. We fought over the matter in his 
study on the night of my arrival, and renewed 
the struggle the following morning—^both of 









Old Memories 


223 


us vitally in earnest, and neither of us making 
any impression. On leaving for my train for 
St. Andrews, I remember re-opening the study 
door, putting my head into the room and 
warning Caird to be prepared to see me do 
something that would settle the matter, by 
making it impossible for me to go on with the 
candidature. I had the idea, after consulta¬ 
tion with my wife and with her assent, to 
announce my withdrawal in the newspapers. 
But all the way in the train my mind was 
tossed to and fro between the alternatives, 
and I could come to no resolution. I was 
very unhappy and quite helpless, when, quite 
suddenly, and without any reason that I 
could assign then or can assign now, I made 
up my mind, or rather my mind made itself 
up. I would go on with my candidature and 
do everything in my power that was honour¬ 
able to win. No new arguments had occurred 
to me : on the contrary, all argument stopped. 
I did not once raise the question any more. 
I do not know if the reader has had the same 
psychological experience : but on one or two 
other occasions in my life, after helpless 
doubt, I found my mind settling itself down 
to a fixed resolve, in the same way. 



224 


Old Memories 


Caird advised me to obtain testimonials at 
once and send them in : I did the opposite. 
I thought then, and I think still, that such a 
course only makes a candidate the longer a 
target for criticism, and that his claims are 
apt to become stale. I was content with 
warning some of my friends that I should be 
troubling them for their testimony by and 
by. Above all, I tried to strengthen my 
claims by expanding articles I had written on 
Lotze into a volume dealing with his Theory 
of Knowledge. I worked very hard, and I 
wrote that volume in a very few weeks.* 

At last the time came when I must no 
longer delay the unpleasant duty of shewing 
myself to the members of the University 
Court. Principal Caird, I may now say, would 
fain have had me withdraw. He knew that 
Professor Veitch would not be able to resume 
his duties, and that a new Professor of Logic 
would have to be chosen. My reply was to 
the effect that never more in this life would 
I be a candidate for any chair. If I was not 
elected to succeed his brother, I would remain 
at St. Andrews. All the other electors, some 
twelve or thirteen in number, I managed to 


*The Philosophy of Lotze. Glasgow: MacLehose, 1904. 







Old Memories 


225 


call upon and see on the same day. Most of 
the interviews were very short : I apologized 
to the Lord Provost and to some of the other 
busy city men for calling upon them ; said 
that I was bound to do so for such was the 
custom ; added something to the effect that 
they could hardly desire to elect a man to an 
important office without knowing what he 
looked like ; asked them to look, and then to 
let me go. The interviews were as pleasant 
as they were short. 

But in the evening, after all was done, I 
found I had left myself a cause for serious 
reflexion. In excusing myself, I had accen¬ 
tuated the need of the electors to see the 
candidate : and I knew that Watson did not 
intend to come to Scotland, at that time. So 
I wrote at once to Edward Caird, told him the 
circumstances, adding that, while I was fight¬ 
ing to win, I was resolved above all else that 
the fight on my side should be clean. I told 
him that Watson must come over and show 
himself in the usual way ; otherwise he would 
weaken or even destroy his chance of success. 
In consequence of my letter Watson was 
called for, came over to Scotland, and went 
round the electors. 


15 






226 


Old Memories 


What took place in the interviews I cannot 
say, but their result seems to have been 
decisive. A meeting of the members of the 
University Court was held on a Saturday. In 
that meeting, as one of them afterwards told 
me. Principal Caird read a most carefully 
written report on the claims of the candidates, 
so that the Court on the following Thursday, 
when the election was to take place, might 
meet with its mind prepared, after reflexion 
on all the facts. In that report. Principal 
Caird, in his skilful and generous way, made 
the most of all the candidates, but lifted 
Watson and myself clean above the others, 
and Watson clean above me. Had the 
election taken place on that Saturday, Pro¬ 
fessor Watson would have been appointed. 
Before the following Thursday, he had visited 
the electors : when Thursday came, his name 
was not mentioned. Somehow or another, 
he had utterly destroyed his own chance. 

I was working under a tree in my little 
garden, assigning marks to the last of the list 
of LL.A. candidates in English when the 
telegram announcing my appointment to 
succeed Caird as Professor of Moral Philosophy 
was put into my hands. My joy was great. 





Old Memories 


227 


but it was chastened by a sense of responsi¬ 
bility which did not leave me for many a day 
—^not till I remembered that I was not called 
upon to be or to be like Edward Caird, but 
simply to be the best that I could make of 
just Henry Jones. 


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